My Lords, I refer to my interests in the register and also declare an interest that I have close relatives who are in receipt of DLA. I want to use this opportunity to put on the record again my ongoing concerns, which are very much reflected in the amendment that the noble Lord has spoken to. I continue to have these concerns about the Government’s change from DLA to PIP for three principal reasons.
First, although I recognise, as others have, that my noble friend has worked very hard and made concessions that have very much improved these regulations, in successive debates about PIP he has repeatedly reassured us that “the most vulnerable” will still be in receipt of the benefit. To me, saying “the most vulnerable” is like saying “the most pregnant”—people are vulnerable or pregnant but the degree starts to give me cause for concern.
The second area that gives me concern, which has already been mentioned, is this figure that has been attached to how many people will lose their DLA. It seems to be an arbitrary figure and nobody seems able to identify quite how that figure came about or how it will be implemented.
Thirdly, in recent years the Government have had to take account of the demographic changes relating to the cost of the care of the elderly—something on which we have had an announcement in the past week. But equally, in looking at these changes, they have ignored another demographic change: the number of people with a disability who now live independently, who 20 or 30 years ago would not have done so.
When I had the privilege of representing Tiverton in Devon, in the 1980s we had three mental institutions in that constituency. The policy to take people out of mental institutions and integrate them into the community was not without its problems, but when you saw those people eventually living in the community it was only too evident that they had become institutionalised because they had basically been locked up for decades, and that the vast majority of them should never have been there in the first place. We do not do that any more. We do not lock people away. Equally, a changing trend that I am very pleased to see is that particular groups of disabled adults no longer live into their middle or old age with even more elderly parents. There are many who still do that, but the trend has been to move them into independent living.
If one sees the cost of what is required to move vulnerable people, even if they are only a little vulnerable, one realises that it is not a cheap option if those people are to be safe and to have the quality of life which we would all aspire to. The Government should have done their homework and looked at this change
in society whereby we now integrate people into independent living in a way that a previous generation would never have countenanced. That is not just about putting a roof over their head; it is also about providing support and sometimes even having to contrive some sort of social life, which is again supported, so that they really feel that they are integrated into society.
My noble friend said at the Dispatch Box just now that the costs of DLA have gone up greatly in the past decade. I suspect that a lot of those costs are associated with the very welcome news that people are now integrated into independent living, sometimes supported but sometimes fully independent, where previously they would either have been locked up or sitting on the sofa at home with elderly parents. There would have come a point with those adults when their parents were no longer able to look after them and when, usually in an emergency, they suddenly became dependent on the state at much higher cost than those small amounts of money needed to support them in independent living. Unfortunately, despite what any Government say, Governments work in silos, so I appreciate that what my noble friend has to look at is the budget of the DWP, when a lot of people who are now moved into independent living are dependent not just on disability benefits but on health and local authority services. It is that package that helps them attain independent living.
I am seriously concerned that many of the 600,000 people, or however many it turns out to be—as my noble friend will know, I have a particular interest in this group—who are on the autistic spectrum, as my noble friend Lord Touhig described, or who have learning disabilities and mental health problems, do not always present initially as people with deep-seated problems and needs. Rather like icebergs, they very often present with a third on the surface and two-thirds under it. When they run into difficulties with independent living or taking their place in society it is not only devastating for them personally but very expensive on the public purse. It is therefore a false economy if that particular group, many of whom may be intelligent and do not present as the most needy or the most vulnerable, lose their DLA after achieving independent living. I say that on behalf of many autistic people whom I have known and on behalf of autistic young people whom I can think of who have committed suicide because they simply could not cope with day-to-day living. It may have taken a long time to get them to independent living and if you pull the rug from under them, the whole structure collapses around them like a pack of cards. It is not the case with learning-disabled or autistic people that, once they have achieved a level of independence you can walk away and say, “Okay, they’ll be all right now for the rest of their life”. They simply do not function in that way.
The Government should look at this changing trend in independent living. It is rarely mentioned by the Government but it is just as significant as some of the challenges that we face with the ever increasing dependency of old age. Much as all of us who take an interest in these matters appreciate what my noble friend has done—he has a very good understanding of autism and is doing a lot to try to help more autistic people
into work—none the less, the words set out in this provision give cause for concern and it is a concern that I share.
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