Welfare Reform Bill

This is a rather odd process where we have the answers before the proposition; perhaps we should move to that procedure. I shall try to truncate what I was going to say because we take encouragement from what the Minister said. I start by asking when we get to hear the announcement. The Minister has given us a very clear indication about that. I hope that it will reflect the clear findings of the review of the noble Lord, Lord Low: that removing the mobility component of disability living allowance from those in residential care would be unfair and irrational. The justification given for the policy proposal is that there has been an overlap with the support provided by local authorities to help with mobility costs, but the review has shown comprehensively that no such overlap exists. Having received responses from 46 local authorities, with an impressive total of 828 written submissions, the review found that, in general, the support provided by local authorities was aimed at meeting a different category of mobility need from that supported by DLA mobility. It states: "““Local authority funding for mobility focused on the support needed to meet assessed care needs, for example travel to a day service, rather than a personal need like visiting friends and family. There was therefore no overlap between the support provided by DLA mobility and that offered by local authorities””." The review also found that DLA mobility is key to meeting the personal mobility needs of care, stating that the evidence received by the review overwhelmingly showed that DLA offers personalised support and provides the individual with choice and control over how their mobility needs are met. As the review concludes, "““it is DLA mobility that provides the most appropriate means of meeting personal mobility needs. If the rights of disabled people are to be preserved then it is vital that DLA mobility, and its successor under PIP, are retained for people living in residential care””." I will not develop that point further, although we should place on record our appreciation to the noble Lord, Lord Low, for all the work that has gone into the review, including the clarity of the conclusion and analysis included in the report. I shall deal with just one further point. We hear a lot about the Government having no money throughout this Committee stage. We should remind ourselves, especially in view of the encouragement that the Minister has just given us, that savings to the tune of £160 million a year from 2013-14 onwards have been booked in respect of this matter. There was a hint from the debate in the other place that those savings were, if not specifically arising from this proposal, of a general nature and, in so far as they could not be achieved by changes to the mobility payments would otherwise have to be met by DLA claimants. Can the Minister be clear on that? If the Government are persuaded to change their stance on mobility payments, will any budgetary shortfall have to be met from elsewhere within the DLA/PIP projections, or will additional funding be provided elsewhere by the Government to meet the fact that that saving, which was never real, will not arise?