Welfare Reform Bill

My Lords, I will speak to the amendments tabled in my name in this grouping. These amendments identify what I believe to be a significant weakness in the current approach. When DLA was introduced it was to help with disabled people’s high living costs and to ensure that those who could not access alternative help were supported, as well as to maximise disabled people’s independence. However, since DLA was introduced, most councils have restricted access to care services. Around 80 per cent of local authorities in England now only provide support to people with needs assessed as being ““critical”” or ““substantial””. People with low or moderate needs have been prevented from receiving support through care rationing. But the Government’s plans to end DLA and introduce PIP would abolish entirely the low-rate care DLA and deny help to many disabled people and their families least able to receive any kind of alternative support. The amendments have been proposed to ensure that some disabled people who need basic, but not a great deal of, support are still able to access help under the new benefit. I declare an interest in the level of support being targeted for total abolition. We need to be aware of those who are at the greatest risk of losing help if the proposals progress as drafted. The amendments would secure some basic support for disabled people and would make a substantial difference between being cut off from support and receiving a little help towards high living costs. It would also ensure that some disabled people are able to manage health conditions and thus prevent the overuse of more expensive NHS treatments or inpatient care. I wonder if the Minister could say whether the Department of Health has provided costs for how it expects to see increases in NHS usage rise for this group of people. The current support helps people manage health conditions and helps towards some of the costs of, for example, higher heating bills for people with conditions that require consistent home temperatures. To lose DLA would undermine the ability to manage and therefore enforce use of the NHS or reliance on formal care services. In a recent survey for disability allowance, for example, roughly one in eight respondents identified higher health service use if DLA were reduced or rescinded. That was the case for low-rate care recipients and people with mental health conditions, who may end up in intensive and expensive psychiatric hospital care which the £19.55 per week currently helps prevent. The recent Dilnot review of care funding said that, "““universal disability benefits for people of all ages should continue as now””." To remove support would exacerbate the care funding crisis as disabled people would not be able to manage—in particular those with low-level need. The Bill will end support for 652,000 working-age adults receiving low-rate care payments, with disabled children and older people set to follow. I believe that the amendment is essential to mitigate the risks to disabled people, their families, the NHS and councils. It would not simply carry over the same people and the same rules, however. I realise that the Government need space in regulations to ensure a new approach in-fitting their PIP plans. The amendment allows that approach. The Government would, of course, retain the right to establish the level of basic need at which disabled people would be entitled to support. They should work with disabled people and their representative organisations to ensure that people who genuinely need help can access some support. I have two final questions. First, has the Department of Health provided a cost for the time and expenses of providing the 2 million medical notes for the working-age disabled people who will go through the new assessment process? Secondly, has the Department for Communities and Local Government provided an estimate of how much demand for council-funded care services is likely to change? I beg to move.