Disabled People

Baroness Thornton Excerpts

Tuesday 27th July 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord Freud]

My Lords, DLA has grown from 1 million people in the early 1990s to more than 2 million at the beginning of this decade to more than 3 million now, which is a huge expansion. Many of those people were self-referred. Clearly, we need to ensure that the money which we spend on people with disabilities is directed at those who really need it.

[Baroness Thornton]

My Lords, the Minister will be aware that many disabled people are helped back into employment by a variety of organisations, including charities and social enterprises—some very small and at very local level. The Government now propose to pay those who provide this support in arrears and by results. Does the Minister accept that many of these organisations will not have the reserves to see them through this important work and that therefore the one size fits all, that is being proposed here, will not work? How is that compatible with big society support for the voluntary sector?

[Lord Freud]

My Lords, if the noble Baroness is referring to the work programme, clearly that is a structure in which consortia will come together and help people right across the spectrum with differential pricing—something which is not currently in existence and means that people concentrate on the easier to help. The work programme will not. The capital is a key ingredient of the work programme. Clearly, capital must go in to support not just the prime contractor but the whole consortia. That is how the smaller organisations will get the resources in order to help the people who need help the most.