Autism: Disability Living Allowance

Baroness Pitkeathley Excerpts

Thursday 10th March 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Freud]

My Lords, I thank my noble friend for what is actually a very complicated question to answer briefly. This is a different assessment. The personal independence payment is looking at what people need to function in their daily lives, whereas the work capability assessment is designed to look at whether people are capable of working. They are different. We need to make sure that we do not have too many tribunal cases. At the moment, under DLA, tribunal cases are at 11 per cent, which is too high. One of the attractions of going to a consistent, coherent new personal independence payment is that we can have criteria which make it much less obvious that people need to go to tribunal.

[Baroness Pitkeathley]

My Lords, I declare an interest as the person who took the Autism Bill through your Lordships' House. The Minister will know that that Bill placed an obligation on local authorities to survey the number of adults with autism in their area to ensure that there are enough services for them and their carers. Given the restrictions on local authority budgets, has he any concerns that they will not be able to do this, thus further disadvantaging people with autism and their carers?

[Lord Freud]

My Lords, we are all indebted to the noble Baroness for taking that Bill through the House. One of the effects of that Act is that even in times of restraint local authorities have an obligation to look after this group of people. The Act provides that protection for them.