Queen’s Speech

Baroness Campbell of Surbiton Excerpts

Wednesday 3rd June 2015 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Campbell of Surbiton (CB)]

My Lords, I shall limit my remarks to two very important areas in the gracious Speech and its impact on the lives of disabled people—health and welfare. This year marks the 20th anniversary of the Disability Discrimination Act. I would ask for a round of applause, but I hear that that is frowned upon. It was followed a year later by the Community Care (Direct Payments) Act. Both laws were enacted by a Conservative Government, liberating millions of disabled people in the UK. We became visible in society. I was actively involved in campaigning for those laws and then working with the Government on their detail and implementation.

My apprenticeship began with the late, beloved Tony Newton. He developed the disability living allowance, which for the first time acknowledged the extra costs of being a disabled person. I then became a critical friend of subsequent Ministers: Nicholas Scott, John Major and William Hague, who called me his big sister because, he said, I was so bossy. So I have great expectations that the current team of Ministers will want to work in the same collaborative way as their illustrious predecessors.

The mid-1990s was a period we can all look back upon with pride. It was a time of great optimism among disabled people. But now is not such a good time. The Independent Living Fund has been closed, independent living care packages are being cut and disabled people really fear where the £12 billion in welfare cuts will fall. The gracious Speech referred to,

“giving new opportunities to the most disadvantaged”.

That is excellent news, since 52% of disabled people remain out of work and one-fifth of disabled people under 65 live below the poverty line. The number of disabled people who believe that they have choice and control over their lives has fallen from 76% in 2008 to just 66% in 2014. So I am pleased that the Government will increase the health budget and integrate healthcare and social care. Too often, social care is thought of as a concern only for older people, yet one-third of those who receive care are disabled adults. They, too, rely on these services to live independently.

Only 14 of the 91 local Better Care Fund plans approved in October 2014 include a focus on working-age disabled people. The Government must now look much more closely at how the Better Care Fund can support people of all ages, if they want us to work and participate in society. Crucially, they must also look at how the additional £8 billion to be invested in the NHS by 2020 will support social care. Otherwise, without significant financial investment, it will not deliver its vision for personalised independent living support. An estimated 97,000 fewer disabled people receive support, compared to five years ago.

Cutting social care is a false economy. Research shows that for every £l spent on support for disabled people with moderate-level needs, an average of £1.30 is saved by the NHS and local and central government. Social care enables disabled people and informal carers to become more socially and economically active, avoiding expensive residential care and hospital admissions.

I urge the Government also to integrate welfare support planning with health and social care. Each impacts on the other. Disabled people continue to be assessed for different support by different departments, wasting public funds on bureaucracy and appeals. We know this from the torturous transition from disability living allowance, DLA, to personal independence payments, PIP—largely due to lack of understanding of what it pays for and how it complements other health and social care services. If these extra costs are not met, independent living grinds to a halt.

A recent research report by the disability charity Scope estimates that, on average, disabled people spend £550 a month on disability-related expenditure on things not available through the NHS, welfare benefits or social care. These include buying specialised equipment, higher heating bills, paying for taxis to get around and covering higher insurance premiums. My annual budget for disability-related costs is £12,000. I did not do that calculation; it was done in my social care assessment.

I asked the last Government to consider triple-locking PIP in the same way that pensions are now protected. That would certainly enhance PIP, as the Prime Minister promised during the election campaign. It was referred to again at Prime Minister’s Question Time today. No answer was forthcoming, but I really hope for one later tonight.

Disabled people have a strong history of working closely with Conservative Governments to find integrated solutions to the barriers we face in society. I urge the new Government to work more collaboratively, as their illustrious predecessors did 20 years ago, so that disabled people do not slide back to the bad old days of dependency, isolation and poverty.