Disabled Persons (Independent Living) Bill [HL]

My Lords, it is a privilege to take part in this debate. I welcome the Bill and congratulate most sincerely the noble Lord, Lord Ashley, on introducing it. It will empower disabled people in actions and decisions related to accommodation, care and payments, and will promote equality and human rights. I congratulate the Government on the work that they are already doing in introducing the new social care concordat and the independent living strategy, which we hope will be available very soon. The new social care concordat demonstrates the concerted effort to improve individual choice and support for disabled and many older people in a joined-up way, really for the first time. The noble Lord’s Bill will ensure that the reforms are stronger and available sooner, with more guarantees that people’s needs will not be ignored. Much in the Bill is very much needed. As the noble Baroness, Lady Campbell, eloquently described, we must do something about the fact that a huge number of disabled adults still rely on care and support from a child or young person to the huge detriment of that young person’s needs and well-being. The recommendations in the social care concordat will enhance local autonomy. This is fine and very welcome, but we also have to recognise that lack of uniformity can create huge difficulties if a person seeking services lives in an area where services are of a low standard. National standards are essential to combat the lack of care so movingly described by the noble Baroness, Lady Campbell. The concordat, while excellent in itself, as the noble Baronesses, Lady Masham and Lady Campbell, have said, offers no redress for an individual if his or her needs are not considered to be critical. Very often they are not met. This must change and I hope that the Government will look at the underlying philosophy which still tends to see low-level care as a short-term cost and, therefore, ignores early investment in preventive and lower-level care and support as unimportant. This should be seen as an investment which can prevent higher-level care, which is far more costly, later. This Bill would go some way to ensuring that this happens. The Government must also bear in mind that the concordat requires adequate investment in order to achieve their admirable goals, but a 1 per cent increase in resources in the next three years is recognised by Wanless and the Rowntree Foundation as inadequate when at least £2 billion to £3 billion is needed to achieve anything worth while. Independence is an excellent aim, which is fine, but it is not for everyone an end in itself. We have to ask many people what independence is for. What is it in order to do? Why does one want independence? For most of us, living means full social participation, self-fulfilment and freedom of choice. Most adults of working age gain that mix of self-fulfilment and independence, financial and social, through work, usually through a combination of income and social capital. Disabled people are no different from anyone else in that regard. So I ask the Government how people will be informed of their rights, responsibilities and choices in terms of employment and benefits if the new personal capability, and now in addition it appears skills, hurdles that are implicit if the Government’s welfare reform aims are to be successfully negotiated. How will this Bill interface with the Welfare Reform Bill and the equality and human rights agenda, which are very important to many of us, as exemplified in the recent single equality legislation proposals, another point I should like the Government to clarify. The Bill will ensure faster and stronger reform and guarantee to many individuals that their needs will no longer be ignored. These aspirations are surely worthy of our total support.