Welfare Reform Bill

My Lords, I would also like to support the noble Baroness, Lady Hollis, on these two important amendments. In the last debate, I was concerned about the vulnerability of people with mental health impairment and their housing needs. Although I am partially satisfied that the Minister is confident about the discretionary payments, I guess that I am not so confident. My question is on a small example. I am extremely worried about people with obsessive compulsive disorder. Shared accommodation can be excruciating for this group of people, so much so that they will not leave their room. So how will they go to the bathroom, without that trust? How will they go down the corridor, not knowing whom they will meet and what will happen? It is an impairment that is very much predicated on the situation and not the physicality. Disabled people are not vulnerable people; they become vulnerable when they are in vulnerable situations. If this Room dropped in temperature—frankly, if it became any colder than it is now—I would be very vulnerable to hypothermia, but I am not a vulnerable person. It strikes me that we are not again looking through the prism of the social model of disability, which says very clearly that disability becomes exacerbated and that you become a disabled person when your environment and the attitudes around you do not enhance your physicality. It strikes me that relying on discretion is too dangerous for particular groups of disabled people, and certainly when it comes to people with obsessive compulsive disorder. A latest disability-related harassment inquiry has just been produced by the Equality and Human Rights Commission. Noble Lords all know that disability harassment has increased exponentially for people with mental health impairments, especially those whom we do not think of as disabled at all. Guess which of those groups gets the worst treatment: people with obsessive compulsive disorder do, because we laugh at them. We think that it is a joke. We have all seen that film, ““As Good as It Gets””. That man was laughed at, but we should remember that he lived as if he was in prison until he had the confidence to leave his own home. Will the Minister assure me again about the discretionary payment, because I do not have his confidence?