Welfare Reform Bill

Let me begin by thanking my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow, North-West (John Robertson) for tabling the new clauses, and—like others, I suspect—by congratulating one or two people who have been at the forefront of a campaign which has undoubtedly been led by the RNIB. It has not been just a campaign, though; it has been a campaign with a robust strategy behind it. This issue was never going to go away, and it needed to be addressed. I thank those at the forefront of the campaign, including my hon. Friend the Member for Aberdeen, South (Miss Begg) and my right hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Brightside (Mr. Blunkett)—and it would of course be remiss of me not to mention the robust approach of the hon. Member for Bournemouth, West (Sir John Butterfill), who did so much to ensure that we would reach this stage. If this were a race, I sincerely hope that what stands before us this evening would be the last hurdle. Along with a small group of Back-Bench colleagues, I went to see the then Minister with responsibility for disability, my right hon. Friend the Member for Stirling (Mrs. McGuire). We emerged from that meeting with the impression that the door was at least partly open, and I thank my right hon. Friend for the work that she has done. Perhaps I should also thank officials in the Department. Although any decision made this evening will be a political decision, I assure the House that those officials have been working in the background, examining the policy that so many of us would like to see in operation. They worked—I was almost about to use unparliamentary language, Mr. Deputy Speaker—very hard indeed to take us to this point. Following up the meeting with my right hon. Friend, we had a further meeting with our good friend the Secretary of State. That meeting—again—came down to the question "Can we afford it?" We said that we had to afford it. When we left his office that day, I think that the words that were ringing in his ears were "If we need to go to the Treasury as a delegation, we will go there to make the case for the funding to make this happen for people." I have attended a number of events organised by the RNIB. On one of those occasions, I was told that there was a message for me. The message came in the form of a compact disc from a constituent of mine, a lady called Charlotte Bennie, whom I had met a couple of times. There were a number of different messages for different Members of Parliament, but the message to me was clear, and I listened to it as I travelled across my constituency one day. It took the best part of 40 minutes. The message described the difficulties that Charlotte experienced in life, getting around, and the difference that a little additional money would make. Along with many others, I attended the lobby in October. I was honoured to be able to address it, and I was honoured to be address the massive gathering in the Methodist Central Hall a little earlier. Let me make a comparison. I ask Members to think of the difference that they could make to people's lives. I look back to the early 1990s, when I served on Dumfries and Galloway regional council. At that time, as a minority administration, we introduced free bus passes for the elderly, which was ground-breaking stuff in those days. It opened up a new world to so many elderly people who had been confined to their homes. The small sum that is now being not just requested but—I must say this to my hon. Friend the Minister—demanded this evening may open up other areas that have been forgotten by those who are partially sighted and blind. I hope that the Department has listened, because I see this as the last chance saloon. Notwithstanding what was said by the hon. Member for Kettering (Mr. Hollobone), there is a great fear among Labour Members that should my party be defeated at the next election—although I will not be defeatist in that regard—and should we not have secured what we seek tonight, it may not be delivered by those on the Conservative Benches. I think that, in 2009, there could be no more appropriate celebration of the bicentenary of Louis Braille than a Labour Government's agreement to what is being requested. We all wait to hear what our good friend the Minister has to say.