Disabled Persons (Independent Living) Bill [HL]

My Lords, I thank my noble friend Lord Ashley for his passion and his determination to raise attention to this important issue. As ever, he has made a powerful case, and, as other noble Lords have noted, he has made an immense contribution over many years towards improving the life chances of disabled people, as have many noble Lords who have contributed to this debate today. They are a very powerful and convincing lobby on this issue. In introducing the Bill, my noble friend has provided your Lordships’ House with another opportunity to debate the critical question of what independent living means for disabled people. This debate does not concern simply the public services that disabled people use; it reaches further. I echo the comments of other noble Lords when I say that our biggest challenge is to change the culture and attitudes that prevent inclusion and equality. Today, my job is to assure noble Lords that this Government continue to make progress in addressing this issue, and to put the case that this legislation is not needed. The challenge is huge, but the Government’s programme of actions is making a real difference now and will continue to break down the barriers to equality. We have not stood still since the Bill last came before this House. We continue to drive forward a programme of real change to transform the lives of all disabled people and their families. We seek a fundamental shift in the relationship between disabled people and public services, which is why we are involving disabled people and many of their organisations in championing their causes and involving them more and more in the design of policy and commissioning of services. I shall briefly set out the main achievements of the Government so far and then address noble Lords’ questions. I want to give the House an understanding of our action and ongoing commitment to deliver the equality, choice and control for disabled people for which the noble Lord is so notable an advocate. I am pleased to inform the House about recent progress on the United Nations convention on disability rights. As noble Lords will be aware, the Explanatory Memorandum and command paper for ratification were laid before Parliament on 3 March. Our ambition is to ratify this in the spring. In ratifying the convention, we are saying loud and clear that this Government are committed both to the convention and to the principle that disabled people have, and should be able to enjoy, the same human rights as everyone else. This shows that the Government are serious about achieving equality of human rights for disabled people and in making real progress towards their goal of disability equality by 2025. The noble Baroness, Lady Thomas, and others mentioned that, just over a year ago, the Government launched the independent living strategy, which aims to give disabled people greater choice and control over the support that they need to go about their daily lives and how it is provided. It is a commitment to a shared understanding of the principles and practices of independent living. It contains more than 50 commitments, many of which are challenging, involving as they do the need to change systems and attitudes. We are making progress in delivering the strategy, and we are committed to measuring and reporting on this annually. The work in progress includes: finding out how to encourage practitioners, including health, social care, housing and employment professionals, to adopt an independent living approach—this is very much reflected in my noble friend’s Bill; creating a one-stop resource to assist practitioners and professionals with older people’s independent living needs; and demonstrating new ways of working with independent advocacy and brokerage. I will deal with advocacy later. My noble friend Lady Wilkins pointed out that the Bill looks at care and support. We will publish the long anticipated care and support Green Paper this spring. This will be followed by a period of consultation. I note that many noble Lords were involved in the creation of the Green Paper and in the consultation on it prior to its publication. The consultation will give disabled people, others who use services, their families, the public and agencies that plan, commission and deliver the services the chance to respond to the reform options proposed in the Green Paper. I do not propose to go into details, but I assure noble Lords that portability, which the noble Baroness, Lady Campbell, and others in particular championed, will be addressed in the Green Paper. Since our discussions during consideration of the Health and Social Care Bill, I have continued to keep a watching brief on this issue, and I have not let it go. I had a meeting with my honourable friend Phil Hope, when he was appointed Minister, to press on him the importance of this issue particularly to Members of your Lordships’ House. The Welfare Reform Bill, which is being discussed in another place next week and has been referred to by several noble Lords, introduces new legislation to increase choice and control for disabled people. They will have a greater say over how public resources are used to provide certain services and support. This right to control will be set out in a primary legislation framework that is less prescriptive than the Disabled Persons (Independent Living) Bill. It puts disabled people at the heart of the process and encourages a joined-up approach to improving services that will be co-produced with disabled people. Flexibility, consultation and co-production are some of the best features of the right to control, as the noble Baroness, Lady Campbell, so rightly pointed out. The Government want to encourage innovation and co-operation between individuals and the state. The right-to-control legislation provides this flexibility by setting out broad rights to deliver improved choice and control but allowing regulations to be consulted on and designed in co-production so that we can achieve the correct right for each service and the support that comes within its scope. This sort of tailoring recognises that disabled people are, indeed, the experts in their own lives. I will listen with interest to the discussions in your Lordships’ House when this Bill reaches us in due course. In social care, last year’s Putting People First sets the direction for adult social care for the next decade. It makes clear the need for greater collaboration to deliver on personalisation, signals the cross-sector consensus on the ambitions for the future, and commits all partners to working together to achieve significant change by April 2011 to enable people to retain their independence and exercise choice and control over the support that they need. Central to that transformation by 2011 is for individuals to access a personal budget. This is a clear understanding of how much is to be spent on their care or support. It allows people to exercise choice or control spending by taking a direct payment. By using an individual budget, individuals can bring a number of income streams together to create a more joined-up package of support. The Government have recently committed an extra £500 million to support councils in carrying out the radical transformation of services that is needed to improve choice and control, as outlined in the springboard report referred to by the noble Baroness, Lady Campbell. Let us not forget that for some specific groups of disabled people, the barriers to choice and control are even greater. That is why we published in January this year our new three-year cross-government strategy, Valuing People Now, to deliver real change for all people with learning disabilities. It sets out a vision where people with learning disabilities are people first, and an agenda for making transformation and equality happen for all people with learning disabilities and their families, including those with complex needs. The strategy emphasises especially the right to access high quality healthcare. It sets out measures on staff training, on annual health checks, health plans and improving the commissioning of services so that people with learning disabilities, who often have poorer health, can lead healthy, active and fulfilling lives. We have also launched the carers’ strategy to better support the 6 million people who care for family members and friends. Equally, we must remember that many disabled people are carers themselves, and this strategy will address their needs, too. Evidence shows that the best way to enable carers to continue to care is by enabling them to take breaks from caring, and that is why we are giving councils £224 million to support carers in England through the carers’ grant this year. In the three years up to March 2011, we will have given councils more than £1.7 billion to enable them to continue to develop innovative and personalised outcomes that reflect the needs of their local carer population. User-led organisations which are led and controlled by disabled people have a key role to play in delivering personalisation and independent living. That is why we are investing over £1.6 million over two years to support the development of up to 25 action and learning sites round the country to develop best practice and share experience with others. We will announce very shortly the sites of who will receive funding this year. There are many examples not just of the difficulties people face, but also really inspirational examples of creative approaches, such as the ways in which disabled people are using their personal budgets to open up new opportunities and take control of their lives. However, like my noble friend Lord Ashley and other noble Lords, I am under no illusion that we still have a fair way to go before all disabled people are empowered to participate fully in society as equal citizens. The Government do not need persuading; we are determined to deliver real change, not just in the lives of disabled people themselves, but in the way in which society reacts to disability. I turn now to some of the specific points raised by noble Lords. The noble Baroness, Lady Verma, my noble friend Lord Ashley and the noble Lord, Lord Best, all addressed the issue of housing, which forms part of the Bill. In February 2008, the Department for Communities and Local Government published Lifetime Homes, Lifetime Neighbours: A National Strategy for Housing in an Ageing Society. The strategy addresses the challenge of ageing and what it means for housing and planning, and the noble Lord, Lord Best, was quite right to commend my noble friend Lady Andrews on her work. DCLG has developed the Lifetime Home Standard, which will give a clear definition of the standards required in guidelines to be followed by designers. The Lifetime Home Standard will become mandatory at decreasing levels of the Code for Sustainable Homes over time. Adherence to lifetime standards will be mandatory for the whole of public sector funded housing by 2011. In addition, the Disabled Facilities Grant Programme is now helping around 38,000 disabled people each year by providing assistance with major housing adaptations. This will enable people to remain living independent lives in their own homes. This is a mandatory grant and local authorities receive an annual allocation without a specified requirement to match the funding. The noble Baronesses, Lady Verma and Lady Masham, both spoke about issues surrounding transport. The Department for Transport is working with local authorities to ensure that accessibility planning is reflected in local transport plans and local area agreements. We intend to keep a watching brief on this. In response to the remarks of the noble Baroness, Lady Masham, I hope that the Mayor of London has taken note of her plea concerning the needs of disabled people and London’s roads. The noble Baroness, Lady Verma, and the noble Lord, Lord Low, also referred to the issue of access to public places, as did several other noble Lords. She will know that the Disability Discrimination Act requires local authorities, through the disability equality duty actively to promote disability equality, including access matters for disabled people. The duty includes making reasonable adjustments to meet the needs of disabled people. I agree absolutely with the noble Baroness and the noble Lord that there is still a long way to go as regards this issue. The noble Baroness, Lady Verma, and the noble Lord, Lord Rix, both raised the matter of personalised individual budgets, asking who is responsible for them, what checks would be made and various other issues. Putting People First was published in December 2007. Central to the transformation is giving individuals a personal budget and a clear understanding of how much should be spent on their care and support. Individuals have a choice whether to take up a personal budget or control it themselves by taking cash in lieu of services, in this case using a self-assessment process. The funding provided should be sufficient to meet the disabled person’s assessed needs, including the costs associated with managing that budget. If the disabled person chooses, they do not have to manage directly their personal budget; rather, they can choose to receive a service that meets their individual assessed needs. This is about enabling people to choose the option that is best for them, while built into the system are measures of support and control. The noble Baronesses, Lady Campbell and Lady Thomas, my noble friend Lady Wilkins and other noble Lords stressed the importance of advocacy; I absolutely agree with them. The cross-government concordat Putting People First sets out a goal of universal information, advice and advocacy services for disabled people, and we expect to make significant progress towards this goal by 2011. We are investing £520 million over the next three years to deliver this transformation, including advocacy services. My noble friend Lady Wilkins was right to remind us of how many people are in fact disabled, and who will reflect their assessment of the success or otherwise of this Government’s delivery of services when they decide how to vote in forthcoming elections. She also raised the issue of the alignment of community care with the right to control. We will test the alignment of right to control services and support with community care in the trailblazing authorities and report the outcome to Parliament. Community care legislation already includes a duty on local authorities to make direct payments, with powers to direct them. We would not want to duplicate or cause confusion with the existing powers in the Welfare Reform Bill. My noble friend also referred to individual budgets. As I have already mentioned, we are piloting these budgets and looking at how they will work. My noble friend and the noble Baroness, Lady Thomas, also asked about progress on the independent living strategy and how disabled people will be involved in its implementation and monitoring. As noble Lords know, it was published in March 2008 and contains a commitment to monitor and report on progress on an ongoing basis. The annual report of the Office for Disability Issues, published in December 2008, contains data on the progress of the ILS and will form a baseline from which progress will be measured. Following a consultation on how best to involve disabled people in the implementation and monitoring of the ILS, the Government published their paper in November 2008, which sets out what we will be doing on the Independent Living Scrutiny Group. The group is made up of disabled people who will be involved and very influential in this issue. The right reverend Prelate rightly asked whether the money will be available. The figures I have given are assured and we intend to continue to commit towards these issues; there is no question of taking the foot off the pedal. The noble Lord, Lord Rix, raised the issue of the closure of communities. I was expecting someone to raise the question asked by the noble Baroness, Lady Boothroyd, on Tuesday. I think we may need to address this matter in a longer debate. When I was listening to that question, I was thinking that we need a longer discussion about how enabling people to be independent does not mean withdrawing support. It is not for me to say what your Lordships' House should be discussing, but it seems to me that this matter merits a longer discussion and a longer explanation of what the Government are undertaking in this area. The noble Lord also raised the Learning Disability Coalition report Tell it like it is. In the light of Putting People First and concerns about eligibility criteria, the Government are committed to carrying out a review of fair access to care. I have discussed that in your Lordships' House in the past. The noble Baroness, Lady Masham, raised an issue about motor neurone disease and the letter. I undertake to deal with that. Officials have already arranged to meet the MND Association in next few weeks to discuss its concerns. Work is under way to discuss what we can achieve in relation to wheelchair services and this issue. The noble Baroness has only to speak and we listen very carefully to what she has to say about these things. The noble Lord, Lord Low, is right that the UK has some of the most advanced and sympathetic legal and public policy frameworks for disabled people in the world. However, we are not complacent. We are glad to recognise where progress has been made, but we know there is a great deal more to do. The noble Viscount, Lord Slim, drew our attention to the needs of our military wounded and disabled. I think that my noble friend can anticipate an amendment from the noble Viscount as the Bill progresses through your Lordships' House. The noble Baroness, Lady Thomas, rightly pointed to the gap between national policy and local delivery. It is a matter of continuing discussion, debate, legislation, allocation of resources and regulation. Indeed, it is the bread and butter of trying to make these policies work. The noble Baroness also pointed to the problems faced by disabled people in the transitions in their lives, and I agree that that is right. I think she may have been slightly unfair, but I hope the Government have put their money where their mouth is on these issues. I am very pleased to welcome the Conservative Party’s agenda for the disabled and am happy that it has joined us in giving it such priority. I hope that Conservatives in local government will join us in trying to deliver it at local level too. I make the point that the Government are not forcing any local authority to close special schools. This is an issue that we have discussed before in your Lordships' House. We are committed to having the most appropriate care and location for each person. I suggest that the work that the Government are leading, which I have briefly outlined, means that the goals that we all desire can be delivered without recourse to this legislation. I thank noble Lords for a truly inspiring debate. I shall finish by saying that one of the reasons we are not convinced of the need for legislation of this nature is that we are preparing to introduce a new Bill—the equality Bill—in the spring. It will streamline the law and will distil nine pieces of legislation into a single Act. It will support our wider work to promote equality. I thank my noble friend and I hope that I have reassured him on the progress that we have made since the last time.