Disabled Persons (Independent Living) Bill [HL]

My Lords, I thank noble Lords for allowing me to speak for a couple of minutes in the gap. I apologise for not being here at the start of this very important debate, but there were some traffic problems. I, too, thank the noble Lord for all the work that he has done to get this debate and the Bill in tune and starting to work. I very much support the Bill. Much of my life involves veterans’ affairs. Therefore, I work with disability in all its forms. I do not see any mention of veterans in the Bill. It may not be much fun to be wounded, but it certainly is a very proud thing to be wounded for your country. Special mention should be made of these great men and women who are wounded, of whom there are many today. I remind noble Lords that veterans are not just very old men and women, like me. They can be an 18 year-old or 19 year-old with no legs or limbs, or they can be blinded. They can have many disabilities. As the noble Lord, Lord Low, so rightly said, it is extraordinary that you can walk into a local council or National Health Service hospital and ask how many patients are ex-military personnel with disabilities and there is usually a stunned silence. I should have thought that in Clauses 5, 6 and 10 there should be a duty on local government and the National Health Service, with all the problems that they have, to make special mention and special lists of disabled military personnel. I have suggested several times to various Ministers for veterans, who all do great jobs but who come and go with considerable frequency, that in local government there should be one council member who has responsibility for service disability. Even if the Government were not prepared to give an instruction on this, one hopes that they would make a suggestion and give every encouragement. Therefore, it is important to have somewhere in the Bill a couple of sentences or a small clause highlighting military disabled veterans, because once they leave the arms of the Ministry of Defence, they are thrown on the street and, unless we are careful—one has seen this on many occasions—they are forgotten and are very much left on the street. I ask Her Majesty’s Government to do something really positive about that in the Bill.