HL Deb 20 July 1999 vol 604 cc846-54

(" . In section 75(1) of the Contributions and Benefits Act, for "65" substitute "70".")

The noble Lord said: Currently, in order to start to receive disability living allowance, a person must satisfy the disability conditions for the allowance and make a claim before his or her 65th birthday. Those over the age of 65 can claim attendance allowance, but this does not have the mobility component and does not have a level equivalent to the lower level of care component. The amendment suggests that older disabled persons should have equal access to DLA and that there should be no upper age limit. Therefore, increasing the limit from 65 to 70 would be an important step in this direction.

Replying to earlier debates, the Minister has stressed time and again the way in which adjustments to our social security system need to be made in the light of changing circumstances. As I have just mentioned, this particular aspect of the DLA arrangements, which the noble Baroness rightly says are very complicated, dates back as far as 1992. As far as concerns age in this context, we must take account of the transformation that has taken place since the time of Beveridge. I believe it was suggested in earlier debates that, on average, a man retiring at what was then the retirement age was likely to draw his pension for about two years or so whereas the period now would be anything up to 15 or 20 years.

Therefore, in that context and against that background, it seems to me entirely sensible that the figure specified in this clause should be raised from 65 to 70. Indeed, on reflection, I have rather come to the view that this is altogether too modest an amendment. I am glad that I have the support of noble Lords in that respect—

Baroness Hollis of Heigham

It might be better if the noble Lord does not "wing" his amendments and then seek to expand them. Indeed, he may well then commit his party to considerable future expenditure.

Lord Higgins

I always have the Treasury aspects in mind, much as I try to deny my past. None the less I think that against the present background that is a fair point. As I understand the present position, DLA and attendance allowance are benefits to help with the extra cost of disability. That is not surprising. DLA has a care component of, I think, three different rates and a mobility component of two rates. To qualify, someone has to satisfy the disability conditions and make a claim before his or her 65th birthday. Those over 65 can claim attendance allowance but in that case they do not receive help towards mobility or receive the lower care component level.

A person who is already receiving DLA when he or she reaches the age of 65 continues to receive the benefit after that age. but someone who does not claim before the age of 65, even though he satisfies the conditions, cannot start to receive the allowance. This seems to me—coming to it rather afresh—a quite extraordinary situation. I am not the least bit clear why if someone has claimed before 65 he or she should receive these benefits, but if they do not claim before 65 they should not do so.

I believe that the implications of the current rules are considerable in terms of financial benefit. This is the other side of the coin to the point which the noble Baroness made a moment or two ago in her intervention. I understand that someone aged over 65 with higher mobility needs and lower care needs could be over £50 a week worse off than someone with exactly the same health problems who happens to become disabled before 65. I understand the other side of that coin which the noble Baroness has mentioned; namely, that if we were suddenly to include everyone over 65 that would involve a considerable expense in aggregate. No doubt the noble Baroness will tell us exactly what sum is involved. However, I believe that people are rather appalled to find that they miss out on an allowance to help with disability costs simply because they do not manage to claim before they are 65. Indeed I suppose that anyone under 65 who has the slightest problems with disability should put in a claim as rapidly as possible.

What I am really saying here is that there seems to be a substantial anomaly. That anomaly is made worse by the fact that people are living longer. Therefore I hope very much that the noble Baroness can give a sympathetic response. If the costs of the measure would be substantial, no doubt we shall have to consider how that problem might be overcome. However, the continuance of this anomaly simply on grounds of cost seems strange. The noble Baroness shakes her head. It looks as if she will be unsympathetic to the amendment but there seems to me to be a strong case for it. I beg to move.

Baroness Darcy de Knayth

I support this amendment. As the noble Lord, Lord Higgins, said, I expect that the noble Baroness will say that it would be expensive. I can see that it may be expensive and difficult to extend to people who are gradually losing their mobility through increasing age. But surely there is a case to be made for giving mobility assistance to people from 65 to 70 in some circumstances; for example, people who suffer a traumatic injury or amputation at that age. Will the noble Baroness consider certain circumstances in which she might be able to allow it?

Baroness Pitkeathley

I wonder whether the Minister would agree with me that one of the main concerns that many of us have about DLA and attendance allowance is the complexity of claiming and the fact that so many claims are turned down first time round. Of course this also has an impact on carers whose benefit is passported on the benefits we are discussing. Does the Minister agree that more emphasis needs to be given to encouraging people to claim before they are 65 and to making the claiming process simpler or to providing help with the claiming process? I believe that 40 per cent of claims are turned down first time round. We all know that having been rejected once, many people would be too anxious or nervous to claim again.

Baroness Hollis of Heigham

I shall deal with the final point first. On a previous amendment we discussed the very real difficulty of seeking to encourage people to increase their claims for DLA/AA. Its complexity lies in the fact that it is based on a diary of their immobility or a diary of their need for care. It has to be, so to speak, bottom up in terms of coming into the system. We are working with local authorities on this matter. As we have said before, we want people to claim the benefits to which they are entitled. If they need those benefits, they should receive them.

I return to the amendment which would increase the upper age limit for DLA to 70 from the current age of 65, or would effectively add the mobility component to attendance allowance. I am a little puzzled by the remarks of the noble Lord, Lord Higgins. He should perhaps tell the Committee why his party has changed its mind on this issue. During the passage of the Disability Living Allowance and the Disability Working Allowance Bill in 1991—which I took part in, along, I think, with the noble Earl, Lord Russell—when we probed the then government's intentions on precisely this matter, the noble Lord, Lord Henley, stated that DLA was intended to direct help towards younger disabled people of working age and under who had had little or no opportunity to work and save. He said that he would not consider extending it to people over 65 as the cost would be considerable and that that was a relevant consideration in his party's eyes. Therefore I am slightly puzzled at some of the somersaults of the noble Lord as regards the position taken by the previous government a few years back.

Lord Higgins

1991!

Baroness Hollis of Heigham

That was the position adopted by the previous administration and these points were probed at the time. The position of the then government was made clear.

It might be useful if I relate some of the background to this matter. The higher rate mobility component has its origins in the old invalid vehicle scheme, which was introduced in 1948, although even that replaced a yet earlier scheme for disabled veterans of the Great War. One of the conditions for receipt of an invalid vehicle in 1948 was that the person should be "socially useful". By that definition those who were "socially useless" were those over retirement age. I suspect that, like me, many Members of the Committee are close to being socially useless, or are already socially useless, and would certainly not qualify for a trike.

However, the term "socially useful" highlights a fundamental principle about the mobility component of DLA, which is still as relevant today as in 1948; namely, that it was always intended to help people disabled during their working life. We believe that our priority remains to ensure that help goes to those who need it most, particularly those who have finite resources because they were disabled early in life. Extending the upper age limit for claiming DLA, as this new clause proposes, would cost almost £300 million a year extra, rising to £650 million in the long term. The reason, as the Committee will recognise, is that the vast majority of us will have mobility restrictions as we get older. It is worth reminding ourselves that 49 per cent of all disabled people are over 65. The frailties and restrictions of old age are among the factors that we all make provision for in retirement.

By contrast, many people disabled early in life will face a lifetime of struggle to overcome limited opportunities—and will not have had a lifetime of working to build up savings—and it is at this group that the DLA/mobility component was primarily targeted. In the words of the Royal Commission on Long-Term Care, The experience of disablement will have a different impact on different age groups. For the great majority of older people it is an episode, albeit a painful one, at the end of life, when family ties, employment and other life events have been experienced. Younger people must try to negotiate their lives while disabled and when the vast majority of their peers, who set the standards of normal behaviour, are able-bodied". Therefore it is right that a degree of priority in allocating scarce resources through extra-costs disability benefits, untaxed and paid regardless of means, should go to younger people with severe disabilities, which is why we are reducing the age from five down to three. However, that does not mean that we do not seek to help elderly people. As I say, half of all disabled people are pensioners, or, to put it another way, as pensioners grow older almost all of them have care and mobility needs. That is why we have taken immediate steps to help pensioners share in the rising prosperity of the nation with the minimum income guarantee and the winter fuel payments, on top of reducing VAT on fuel and scrapping eye test charges. That is why we also make provision for severely disabled people over the age of 65 to acquire attendance allowance, which is paid to 1.3 million people at a cost of £2.7 billion a year.

We are also working with disabled people and their representatives to see whether we can improve on the current structure and gateways for DLA and AA. In particular, we are looking at the possibility of a system based not on care need in the kind of broad brush structure that we have at the moment but on a range of activities of managing life. This work is in its early stages but if it progresses then issues such as those raised by the noble Lord, Lord Higgins, will certainly be taken on board.

I believe that we have made significant progress in the two years since coming to power to ensure that people have financial security in retirement. But to extend DLA in the way proposed by the Opposition— whatever they may have said when they were in government—does not seem to be sensible against the long-standing policy of targeting help towards those who have the greatest need over the longest period of time. In view of this, I hope that the noble Lord will withdraw his amendment.

5.30 p.m.

Lord Higgins

I am somewhat astonished by the noble Baroness's reply. I have some difficulty in understanding what winter fuel payments have to do with whether someone of the age of 66, for example, is or is not entitled to a benefit which someone of the age of 63 receives.

Baroness Hollis of Heigham

As I said. 49 per cent of all disabled people are over pensionable age and disability increases with age. A very high proportion of pensioners over the age of 75 are disabled; that is associated with their age. Given that generality, we believe the right way to help them is to make sure that they have access to the other benefits I talked about: winter fuel allowance to help with their heating; the minimum income guarantee to help with their diet, and the like. That is the point I was seeking to establish.

Lord Higgins

I will not pursue that point except to say that the extraordinary thing about the winter fuel payment is that it is in contrast to almost everything else the Government are doing; it is not means tested. I understand that some people have been fortunate enough to receive their winter fuel payment last week. If the noble Baroness had checked up, perhaps she would have realised that it is not a good moment to mention winter fuel payment in the middle of July.

Be that as it may, the noble Baroness suggested that our view has changed since 1991. That may be so but, as I pointed out, the whole flow of the argument has been that people are living longer and, therefore, there is some case for raising the age limits. As to what was said in 1991—for which I was not responsible—I am probably totally inconsistent in proposing this in comparison with Mr Disraeli's views on the subject. But we should not go back too far with regard to what previous governments may have done. We would do better to look to the future.

Baroness Hollis of Heigham

How far back will the noble Lord take responsibility for the previous government's actions?

Lord Higgins

I think we must look forward, not backwards.

Baroness Hollis of Heigham

That seems charmless of the noble Lord, given the present Government's position.

Lord Higgins

Given some of the critical remarks made by the Treasury and Civil Service Committee for some 14 years under my chairmanship about what the previous government were doing, I, personally, feel reasonably content with all that. Be that as it may, I was slightly unnerved by the fact that the quotation from 1991 came from the noble Lord, Lord Henley. I am not quite sure whether or not his views have changed. Perhaps one should call a Division and see what happens. In his present role he may still have views on the subject.

I heard what the noble Baroness said, particularly about the cost; £300 million is a substantial sum. I am not quite clear how that will rise to £650 million; presumably it will happen as more and more people live longer. Having said that, the situation seems to be extraordinarily anomalous. People who claim before the age of 65 will get these benefits ad infinitum, if that is the right expression; on the other hand, someone over 65, who perhaps by mistake has not claimed—we all agree it is difficult to understand DLA—will not. In particular, people who are over 65 find that they will not receive any of these benefits.

I found the argument put forward by the noble Baroness very strange in this context. It appeared that if one was below 65, then one was in some sense more useful and should receive the benefits in order that one goes on being useful. However, if one is over 65 one does not receive the benefits unless one has claimed them before one was 65. The more I look at this matter—which I brought forward originally in the context of a rather simple, straightforward amendment—the more puzzled I become. Apart from the question of cost and to what extent one should give this priority, I become more and more puzzled as to why this particular anomaly has been allowed to continue.

Baroness Hollis of Heigham

Perhaps the noble Lord will agree that there is a difference between these two situations. On the one hand, we have the situation where people become disabled in their thirties and have not yet had the income to be able to afford to run a car; they are in work but, because of their disability, the only way they can continue to work is if they receive a mobility allowance that they can then translate into a Motability car; that allows them to continue to work. On the other hand, we have the situation where if a man becomes disabled at 68 or 70, he will, if he is a car driver, already have acquired his car during his working life when he was not disabled. He has acquired the car and been able to run it; he continues to run the car. I do not deny that there are always problems at the 64/65 margin, or wherever one draws the line. But there is a basic distinction between someone who has not had an opportunity to acquire a car—and without a car has to drop out of the labour market—and someone who is likely to have a car—and, thank you very much, would like some financial contribution towards it—and would continue to run the car in any case once he has passed the age of 65. That has been the basic approach.

Lord Higgins

We are venturing into the technical area of how long cars last and whether it is better to replace them and so on. Again, I find this rather a strange debating point. It may well be that the person over 65 finds that his car has worn out or is uneconomical.

The noble Baroness raises yet another point: whether the whole purpose of the allowance is simply to allow people to work. If I understand her correctly—she may have been making it up as she went along—the allowance is to enable people to work until 65. If that is her argument, it stops dead at the point where the allowance goes on being provided after the age of 65. Perhaps we should be clear whether, in her view, the purpose of the mobility allowance is purely to enable people to work.

Baroness Hollis of Heigham

That is not what I said. I was trying to explain why someone who was in work would have to drop out of the labour market without mobility allowance. If that person then continues to use the car, he may carry on working for a number of years. He may drop out of work in his fifties, or whatever, and continue to use the car. On the noble Lord's argument, we would then extract that car from him at the age of 66 because he has crossed the threshold of 65 and yet has no alternative resources, whereas somebody who becomes disabled after 65 is much more likely to have built up the resources enabling him to provide for the increasingly reduced—if I can use that phrase—mobility needs that come with old age. That is all I was saying.

Lord Higgins

I am not at all sure that one's mobility problems decrease with old age, which is what the noble Baroness said a second ago. Perhaps that is not what she meant to say.

Baroness Hollis of Heigham

No.

Lord Higgins

Clearly one's mobility gets worse with age rather than better. I am not arguing—nor does the amendment argue—that one should stop people below the age of 65 being entitled to this allowance; nor are we arguing that they should not continue to receive it after 65 if they claim it before 65. All we are saying is that there is a very clear anomaly here in that people over 65, or those who failed to claim while they were under 65, will not receive the kind of benefits that those under 65 receive.

I may have misunderstood the noble Baroness but she seemed to be saying that the purpose of this allowance is to enable people to work. Clearly the question of mobility is much broader than that; people over 65 also need to be mobile, whether or not they are working. Of course, nowadays some may well indeed be working over the age of 65.

Baroness Darcy de Knayth

Before the noble Lord decides what to do with the amendment, as it is Committee, perhaps I may intervene. The noble Baroness did not answer my question. I may not have phrased it very well. I can see the difficulties if a vast number of people, because of old age, have increasing mobility problems, but what about the person over 65 who has an amputation or becomes paraplegic or whatever? Is there not a case for ensuring that such people are mobile? I am thinking, for example, of the socially useful granny who suddenly becomes an amputee. As the noble Baroness said, someone who was socially useless would not qualify for the trike any more. But a large number of 65 year-olds are extremely useful socially. Even if they do not work, they are useful to their families and in other ways. Does the noble Baroness think that there is a case for helping someone who has a traumatic injury and becomes disabled after 65?

Lord Higgins

As we are in Committee and I do not wish to be out of order, I had better sit down at this stage and let the noble Baroness reply.

Baroness Hollis of Heigham

I apologise to the noble Baroness if I did not answer her point. I am sure that there is a case for helping such people, as in the examples given by the noble Lord. However, the noble Baroness gave an example of someone with a traumatic injury. What happens if someone has, for example, increasingly severe arthritis? What is the trigger point in terms of how we discriminate and distinguish between cases?

The point about DLA, with its lower, middle and higher rate, is that we apply the idea of the care proxy. That is simple. For mobility, the higher rate mobility component has been based on the "virtually unable to walk test", which is much broader than that used by the noble Baroness. While I sympathise with the point she makes, it would be very hard to restrict decisions or to hold any such line as she has suggested. I do not deny that such a disablement would be traumatic and would totally turn someone's life over; it would be horrendous for the person. But that is equally true of the growing problems of osteo-arthritis and the like. It would be difficult to make a distinction.

Returning to the noble Lord's point about "socially useful", it is not something that I am now endorsing. I merely thought that it would amuse your Lordships. That was the point about 1948. Clearly, the joke fell flat, because noble Lords are confident that they are so socially useful that the descriptions of 1948 do not apply any more. The point that I attempted to establish was that the original designation was that people who become disabled early in life are likely to have fewer opportunities to work. It therefore makes it far harder for them to make provision for later life. What we are talking about is a non-means-tested benefit which contributes towards the extra costs of disability.

The noble Lord would have a point if his intention were to make the benefit means tested. But it is not. Where disability has occurred over the age of 65, the presumption is that the person will have had a normal working life, built up resources, acquired a car and some savings and be much better able to make provision for his or her mobility needs, irrespective of age, than someone who is disabled early in life, whether in work or working but not for a wage—as a carer, for example—and where help is needed to help to allow that person to meet the mobility needs for a full and socially inclusive life.

Lord Higgins

I understand what the noble Baroness is saying. But taking the debate as a whole, her reply was unpersuasive—except in one context; namely, such provision would cost £300 million initially, and apparently £650 million later. That is always a rather persuasive argument. Other than that, it was difficult to find any argument at all to suggest that this anomaly is not a serious one and ought to be looked at again. I shall look carefully at the noble Baroness's arguments. I may wish to return to the matter at a later stage. Subject to that, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Lord Higgins moved Amendment 127C: After Clause 62, insert the following new clause—