Welfare Reform Bill

It would be presumptuous to add much more to the powerful case that the right hon. Member for Sheffield, Brightside (Mr. Blunkett) made. The Liberal Democrats support the new clauses. In Committee, my hon. Friend the Member for Rochdale (Paul Rowen) and I added our names to the amendment that the hon. Member for Glasgow, North-West (John Robertson) tabled there. We all remember a cold Westminster Hall, full of RNIB supporters lobbying us. That did not happen just once. Often, there are mass lobbies and the caravan then moves on, to be succeeded by another lobby on another issue in another year. I was struck by the fact that the RNIB came back and said that its members had returned to say the same thing because they did not get the answer that they wanted. Perhaps that is a lesson to other campaigning organisations that sometimes they have to repeat the same thing time and again. I recall many letters that I and other hon. Members of all parties wrote to the Department for years, and the replies, which reflected the official position that benefits were paid on the basis not of a condition but its impact, and that the change could not be made. There is a sense from the comments that have been made that a change may be imminent—we all want to hear that. If, as the Minister said in Committee, funding for the measure will come from elsewhere in the benefits system, I hope that he will be clear about where that will be or about whether he will announce additional funding. I recall some other changes that his Department made that looked good at first sight, but later we discovered the cut that had been to pay for them. I therefore hope that if the Minister accepts the new clause, he will be up front about whether additional money has been won from the Treasury or whether he will take the money from elsewhere. There are different definitions of blindness and the sorts of people who might be eligible for the different rates. If the Minister accepts the new clause, I urge him not to draw a new and potentially arbitrary line. I know that such matters are not easy, but I hope that it will be absolutely clear in any regulations that he introduces about who is included. Nothing that arises from our debate this evening should lead anyone to think that they have hope, only to find themselves on the wrong side of the line. I hope that he is clear both about who falls within the scope of what he will do and about who is excluded, so that no one who has supported the RNIB, been on a lobby and heard on the radio that the change is being made will find that it has been defined rather narrowly and excludes some people. I hope that he will be absolutely clear about who is covered.