Welfare Reform Bill

My Lords, I very much support the amendment and I hope that my noble friend is persuaded by the arguments of the noble Baroness. DLA is very hard to award correctly. Unlike, say, JSA, HB or even the former incapacity benefit, it is not awarded on the facts of disability but on the judgment on the effects of it on the need for care. Two people with identical disabilities can quite properly receive different levels of DLA, perhaps because of their competence, energy, general level of health, education and so on—or possibly because of practical things such as the layout of the home, their aids and appliances, which mean that they can function more or less independently. That call for DLA is difficult to assess at the best of times. It is even harder when you are assessing mental healthcare needs, which are often stigmatised and hidden. It is even harder again when conditions fluctuate; ME, MS, attention deficit disorders and some mental health needs are unpredictable. Hardest of all is assessing the care needs of children with mental health needs, where again conditions fluctuate—comparisons have to be made continuously with so-called average or normal children—when a lone parent is not always able to articulate that child’s disability or needs, and when, as the latest report from the Autism Society about adult patients with autism shows, even GPs can confuse apparent misbehaviour or failure to behave appropriately with poor mental health. How much more does that apply to children? It is not surprising, therefore, that more than 60 per cent of appeals against the withdrawal or downgrading of an award of DLA succeed. I have sat in on some of those tribunals. The appeals succeeded not because the decision-makers were obtuse or unkind; invariably I found them polite, professional and doing their best with a difficult job. On the evidence that they were given they made what seemed at the time to be the right call. However, because conditions change, fluctuate and, sadly, all too often deteriorate, and because some mental heath problems are hard to read—even by the medical profession—and because, above all, the carer or lone parent often fails to give the DWP decision-maker all the relevant information they need because that carer does not always know what the DWP needs to know, there is an appeal. I have sat at tribunals where a kindly and patient chair has elicited information from a lone parent or carer that was not on the written application and which made all the difference; the award has been improved and the lone parent has rightly received the money that she needs for her child. What is it, then, that the DWP needs to know and often does not know, as a result of which the lone parent who goes to appeal wins the award? As the noble Baroness, Lady Thomas, said, the lower rate is awarded when attention is needed for a significant proportion of the day beyond what an average child would need. The middle rate is awarded when frequent or several bouts of attention are needed during the day or night. The higher rate applies to frequent attention needed day and night. The gap between not having any DLA needs and qualifying for lower-rate DLA is fairly straightforward. The gap, however, between the need for significant attention, thereby qualifying for the lower rate, and frequent attention—the middle rate—is not at all straightforward. Children wander literally as well as metaphorically across that line all the time. For example, when a child who is on the Asperger-autism spectrum needs to get ready for school, they take longer to dress, may have to go by taxi if there is some distance involved—because a seven or eight year-old cannot be trusted to behave sensibly on a bus—and so on. In that case, the lower-rate DLA applies. Then the child has a highly stressed school day; there are tantrums, biting, hitting and the parent is called in to help. At that point, two hours later, the parent has moved into potentially being a recipient of middle-rate DLA. However, the following day the child’s behaviour has stabilised and we are back to lower-rate DLA—all within 24 hours. I say to my noble friend, I fully support keeping lone parents connected to the labour market. Most want to work, need to work and it is the best possible springboard for them and their children. However, I urge him to accept that it makes no sense at all to draw an artificial line within the community of children on DLA—a line that would require some parents to enter into work-related activity and eventually work, and not others, as though there were a firm and fast line between lower and middle-rate DLA, which I know is not and never has been the case. No such line exists. It is a judgment call that is properly made one day, and a day later a different call properly can been made. If a lone parent can work, she will; but if, given her child’s disability, she thinks that she cannot, that is enough for me. Her life, as the noble Baroness, Lady Thomas, said, is hard enough as it is, when every day is full of stress and problems. To add yet another set of pressures is not fair and, I suggest, will not work. Why not? Even if we enrol her into the programme and a job, she is never off duty for potential childcare. She may arrive late because the child has had a difficult early morning, and she may have to leave early because she is worried about how that child has been all day. She may find all-too-frequently that specialised childcare has broken down; this is one situation where neighbours cannot or will not be called in to substitute—so she has to drop out of work again. She may need to leave work temporarily to go into school to give medication. She may be exhausted because of a sleepless night or possibly—even probably—depressed about trying to cope with it all. I ask your Lordships whether you as an employer, however well intentioned, could keep such a lone parent in work, even if she found a job. I rather doubt it. She will churn; and every churning, every rebuff, will add to her failure and lack of self-confidence and make re-entry harder next time. I repeat: I want her to have work-focused interviews—that is light-touch engagement with the world of work. Their children’s health may change and, I hope, improve as they grow older. I want to keep pathways to work open. I and my noble friend are on the same side. However, where a child has disabilities and that line between lower and middle-rate is so unrealistic, engagement in work-preparation programmes and work must be voluntary and by encouragement. Otherwise—and I do not think that I am putting this too strongly—we risk breaking her. No one else will or could care for her disabled child as she does, with a possibility of the best outcome for that child. I hope very much that my noble friend will accept or move towards the amendment of the noble Baroness on behalf of disabled children.