Welfare Reform Bill

Whether or not amendment 43 is needed, I am quite sure that the officials and others who do the assessments would not expect people with those conditions to be able to go to work. I do not think that this would be a great problem in practice; however, there is always a problem at the boundary. When I was getting on the Jubilee line this lunchtime I met a young man in a wheelchair—in fact, he turned out not to be that young, because 20 years ago he was helping to build the Jubilee line. He said, ““What do you do?”” ““I work at the House of Commons,”” I replied. ““Are there any jobs there?”” he asked. ““650,”” I said. ““They come up every five years.”” He said, ““I'm a cook.”” ““There's no reason why a cook can't be a Member of Parliament as well,”” I said. I did not ask him whether he lived at home, in a hospital or in a residential care home, or whether his residence was in a home with others. Earlier this afternoon, I spoke indirectly—I will now speak directly—about St Bridget's in Rustington, the place mentioned in the first line of the second verse of ““The Gnu Song”” by Michael Flanders. For those with long memories, ““The Gnu Song”” comes when he is talking about someone parking a car across his dropped curb with ““GNU”” on the registration plate. There are people in Rustington who live in their own homes, and others who also live in their own homes, but who share it with others. The definitional problem is just as great as it might be at the Princess Marina home—again in Rustington—which is a Royal Air Force benevolent fund home that is dual registered. Part of it counts as a hospital, part of it counts as a home and part of it counts as a residence. Incidentally, ““residential homes”” are not defined in the legislation; rather, it talks about ““care homes””. In Worthing, in the other part of my constituency, there is Gifford house—the Queen Alexandra hospital home—which is not just for former service personnel, but for many others. Although I have not had representations from them, I do not want to exclude them from consideration. I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Minister for kindly coming to St Bridget's—the Leonard Cheshire home—among her many visits. I pay tribute to the people who live there, their families and my hon. Friend the Minister, because it was one of the best meetings that I have seen for a long time. I trust my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State, my hon. Friend the Minister and those working with them to come up with the right answer. My preference is for amendment 42 to be agreed to, and then for the Government to come forward with their solution to the problem after they have received the result of the review. They can then come back, either here or in another place, and make an adjustment if they choose to do so. At the moment, however, the way I read the legislation is that someone whose residence happens to be in, say, St Bridget's—this is not exclusive to St Bridget's or Leonard Cheshire homes generally—could easily be excluded. I shall not make the sort of speech that I might make in opposition, about how the Henry VIII clause in clause 83(4)(e) allows"““such other services as may be prescribed””" to be covered, nor shall I go on about subsections (5) or (6), which would allow almost anybody to be divorced under this legislation. However, I believe that we can trust the Government and that they are setting about this in a way that is rational. However, unless the legislation is amended or we receive other assurances, this is not legislation that this House ought to pass. Dorothy Sayers, in her book ““Unpopular Opinions””, distinguishes between the English—by which she meant the British—and, say, the French by saying that whereas they believe in equality, we believe in fairness. There are currently three issues where fairness concerns me, and this is one of them. Another is the question of those women born in the mid-1950s losing more than a year's pension, and another is overseas pensioners in the old dominions or elsewhere who cannot get pension increases. We have to take those issues one by one. I believe that the Government will solve the problem of the extra unfairness for those women born in the 1950s. I want the Government to find the solution to the problem that we are discussing in this debate, and later we can come to the overseas pensioners. On the subject of this debate, why should we necessarily risk solving the so-called overlap by taking away the higher-level mobility component, rather than taking away what the county council might otherwise provide, which is a far smaller amount? I met a woman in a wheelchair, like the man I met on the underground—he said that he was interested in politics, so I gave him yesterday's Hansard to cheer him up—who wanted to go to her father's birthday party and then attend a college course. Those two journeys by themselves, at the subsidised rate of the St Bridget's minibus, would have exhausted her money if she had not had the mobility allowance. Obviously people's circumstances vary, but rather than make a long speech—we have heard rather too many of those this afternoon—let me end by saying that if amendment 42 comes to a vote, I shall vote for it. I trust that the Government will come back and make things plain in legislation, rather than our having to rely on positive resolutions on statutory instruments or the results of the consultation or assessment that they are currently undertaking.