Welfare Reform Bill

My Lords, this Bill contains many significant reforms. Some offer new kinds of support to those who face the biggest barriers to gaining and staying in work. Other reforms in the Bill cause me some concern but the Minister will be pleased that today I wish to concentrate on what I think are some of the most exciting proposals contained in Part 2 dealing with right to control. That has my strong support, although I have a few minor caveats. I begin by declaring an interest. As the Minister has stated, I have the privilege to be the independent chair of the right to control working group, established by the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions in another place. That group is developing new forms of support for disabled people to enable them to move from being passive recipients of traditional benefits to becoming more active in the community and, more importantly, in the labour market. That new support, which we are developing, will be transformative: disabled people will be in the driving seat and, in essence, in control. For too long the welfare system has provided a safety net for disabled people’s survival. It has not provided a springboard to enable entry or re-entry into the labour market. It has done things to people rather than facilitating their aspirations to become more socially and economically active. Low expectations, bureaucratic multiple assessments and fragmented support services have left disabled people unemployed for decades. Part 2 of this Bill provides a completely new framework for taking forward a right to control which potentially revolutionises the way support needs are assessed and delivered. The right to self-determination through self-operated support is not a new concept. It has come about from the very strong campaigns by the independent living disabled people’s movement in collaboration with Governments over the past 30 to 40 years. It really took off in the 1980s when a few disabled people began to control their personal care arrangements by using direct payments to employ personal assistants. Thirty years later, we have a whole range of personalised support, mostly financed through social care provision. Thankfully, disabled people taking control of their support is now spreading to other areas of public service provision. Today we will discuss this right with respect to welfare reform. Next week, during the Report stage of the Health Bill, we shall discuss something very similar, when we debate health budgets. The snowball of personal control is growing by the year and this makes me a very happy disabled person. I know that feeling is shared by hundreds of others out there listening to this debate. However, disabled people need a set of consistent principles, criteria and support to underpin this programme. The most important role of Part 2 will be making sure that the legislation is fit for this holistic purpose. We need to be sure that the trailblazers, who are going to test how the right to control can be developed effectively for all disabled people, will have the power to involve different service providers under the same right-to-control framework. This is not just a DWP project. Across Government, departments must be engaged in establishing a holistic support infrastructure and it is the joined-up aspects of this legislation that I have slightly less confidence in. RADAR and the Disability Benefits Consortium have been echoing my concerns that the drafting of Part 2 does not accurately reflect the policy intention set out in the White Paper, Raising Expectations and Increasing Support: Reforming Welfare for the Future. The White Paper was clear that the intention was to draw together a range of different funding streams to support a new system of individual budgets, based on self-directed support, and yet the Bill explicitly excludes social care from the ambit of the right to control. I have been assured, by the Minister responsible for social care in another place, that this is purely a matter for alignment at a later date. Apparently, social care feels it is ahead of the game on this issue with individualised budgets. It wishes to be involved, but not included under the right to control umbrella. I was told that this legislation could override social care regulation, which has taken the right to control further. I am not yet convinced. I foresee a danger that, unless social care is included in the Bill, disabled people will not be able to exercise their right to control over all social care services. That means not only the right to control direct payments, but the right to control resource allocations, whatever they might be, including direct services as well as direct payments. Would it not make sense to have all support services that help disabled people under a wide framework with one set of principles?