Welfare Reform Bill

Debate between Fiona O'Donnell and Alan Reid

Wednesday 15th June 2011 Commons Chamber

[Fiona O'Donnell]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his support.

Let me talk about a few of the other people who lived at Upper Springland. David had no voluntary movement of his arms and legs, and a little movement of his head. He had no verbal communication. He was completely dependent but he had an incredibly active mind. He was able to communicate through an auxiliary voice and communication system. When he asked to have some swear words programmed into his computer, it caused some discomfort for the rather old-fashioned manager of the residential home as David wandered around the corridors telling everyone to “Eff off!”

David had come from Edinburgh to Upper Springland because of its excellent reputation. He would love to return home on visits to see his family. I personally accompanied David on his last visit to his father before his father died and also to the funeral. I have genuine concerns about that. The Secretary of State shakes his head, but unless we get a definition of what the overlap means, how can we have any confidence? The organisations out there representing people with disabilities do not have confidence in the proposal, so the Secretary of State has no reason to shake his head.

There was another young woman called Joyce who was not only active—she played a sport called boccia and travelled around the world—but had a job for a few hours a week so that she did not lose her benefits, and volunteered in various organisations. To support her to do that, she needed the flexibility to be able to book her own taxi to go to work and to participate in the other activities. There was Maggie, who refused to travel in the transport available at the centre because there was a great big sign up the side of the vehicle which said “Capability Scotland” and she did not see why she should be branded, but going to church every Sunday was very important to Maggie.

These are people I cared about and people I cared for. I fear greatly for what will happen to them and what their future lives will be like if the House does not support the amendments.

I have been critical of the Minister and other Members on the Government Benches, saying that they do not understand what disability and residential care mean. I heard the Prime Minister in one session of Prime Minister’s questions talk about people in residential homes. Then, it was an anomaly between them and people in hospital. Now the Prime Minister seems to acknowledge that residential care is a social model, not a medical model. He has said that the DLA mobility component is not being removed, but the evidence in the Red Book is that it will disappear, so I am not reassured even by a six-month stay of execution.

We must ensure that people continue to have the same choices as people living outside residential care homes. I do not like to talk about people living in the community, because people who live in residential care homes are also part of our community. What evidence is there of an overlap there? Charitable organisations provide access to vehicles, so is the Minister going to assess whether there is an overlap there as well?

People in residential care make the same choices as we do. How many of us do not need a car? We could use public transport, but for those people to buy an outdoor electric wheelchair, which they would not be entitled to under the NHS assessment, makes all the difference to their lives. Why should they not have that choice? It is not just about Motability cars. It is also about people who have entered into contracts and loans to pay for those electric wheelchairs. All these months on from the Westminster Hall debate, we still do not have an answer from the Minister about what will happen to those people.

A further topic that the Minister has not addressed—the hon. Member for Cardiff Central had great hopes that she would talk about it today—is the situation in respect of the devolved Governments of the United Kingdom. If the Minister has any expectation that there will be regulation of residential care homes or a duty placed on them to provide a service to people with disabilities, if she thinks she can compel the NHS to start providing more mobility adaptations to people with disabilities, and if she believes in the universality of the benefit, how can she ensure that people in Scotland will always retain the same benefits as people in the rest of the United Kingdom? She did not clarify that, so I would like to give her the opportunity now to intervene and answer that question. [Interruption.] No?

[Mr Reid]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

--- Later in debate ---

[Fiona O'Donnell]

All right; someone else will speak.

[Mr Alan Reid]

(Argyll and Bute) (LD): Surely the hon. Lady, as a Scottish Member, knows that it is up to the Scottish Parliament to decide on devolved matters. That is what devolution is all about. It is up to the Scottish Parliament to decide whether it provides that benefit or not.

[Fiona O'Donnell]

I know that. I am questioning whether the Minister understands that that is the situation we find ourselves in and the impact it will have. Will the review include Scotland and the other devolved areas of the United Kingdom?

[Fiona O'Donnell]

I absolutely take heed of that and apologise if I have taken too much of the House’s time, but I feel passionately about this issue. I will bring my remarks to a close by saying that I hope hon. Members will walk through the Lobby with us to vote in favour of the amendments that my colleagues and hon. Friends on the Front Bench have tabled.

[Mr Reid]

I had wanted to speak tonight on my concerns about the proposal not to make any personal independence payment for the first six months, but I will speak about that later. Further to what the hon. Member for East Lothian (Fiona O'Donnell) has just said, my understanding of the Government’s position is that there is an overlap, and it is perfectly correct that where an overlap has been identified we ought to have a review. It is also important to stress that we are not abolishing the mobility component for people in care homes by voting against the amendment tonight; we will be voting to give the Government the power to make regulations.

Fuel Prices and the Cost of Living

Debate between Fiona O'Donnell and Alan Reid

Wednesday 16th March 2011 Commons Chamber

[Fiona O’Donnell]

Not at this stage.

The e-mails that I have received have not been the standard campaign e-mails that many of us find in our inboxes every day. I have been genuinely moved and angered by the stories that they have told. They have been from motorists, some of them older people living on pensions, people surviving on disability living allowance—Lord knows, they have enough to worry about under this Government—or people stuck on fixed incomes. This rise in the cost of fuel is hitting them hard.

I have also had e-mails from employers in my constituency. East Lothian relies heavily on small employers, but they are struggling. Two have already told me that their businesses will close this month, and that is bad news for East Lothian and for my constituents. We are promised that we will have a Budget for growth next week, but in East Lothian, the Government’s policy is not working; it is going in the opposite direction.

[Mr Reid]

Like the hon. Lady, I represent a rural constituency and, like her, I agree that we need action on fuel prices now. However, we need action in the Budget next week, not in the six years it would take for this Labour motion to be implemented.

[Fiona O’Donnell]

I am sure that all my constituents will feel so much better after hearing that intervention. They do not want to hear the hon. Gentleman’s political point scoring and opportunism; they want to hear what the Government are going to do for hard-working families, for pensioners and for those with disabilities in my constituency.

I have had e-mails from people who have lost their jobs. People living in East Lothian need to be able to keep their cars on the road in order to access the services that will help them get back into work, to turn up for job interviews and to get out there to find and keep a job. I have also had e-mails from people who have been struggling throughout the past few years. I am going to admit that, for those on fixed incomes, times have been difficult, but the message is now clear that, under this Government, they are getting tougher.

I am also going to be unusually generous and congratulate the Tory party on a splendid result in the general election in East Lothian, where it moved up to second place. The Scottish National party—I see that its Members have now deserted us—moved down to fourth. Before the Tories get too excited, however, I should point out that that result involved a 0% swing from Labour. Many of the people who have contacted me voted for the Tories at the election, and I am representing them today without fear or favour. They want to know when the Government are going to deliver for them. If the Government will not listen to me or to those on our Front Bench, I urge them to listen to my constituents.

I know that the first questions that my constituents would want me to ask today are, “Where is the Chief Secretary to the Treasury?” and “Where is the Chancellor of the Exchequer?” They will be insulted that the Chancellor and the Chief Secretary have not had the guts to turn up and take part in this debate and to answer my constituents’ questions. I have something of interest to tell the House. I went to the same school as the Chief Secretary to the Treasury. The right hon. Member for Ross, Skye and Lochaber (Mr Kennedy) also went to that school, and he has remarked to me, “That’s now one of us from each of the political parties.” I am particularly disappointed that the Chief Secretary to the Treasury, who represents a rural constituency, does not see the impact that the increase in fuel prices is having.

I try hard not to be judgmental about the Conservatives, and I try hard not to make the kind of comments that the Minister finds so harsh. But when they talk about the tough choices that they face in government, I have no sympathy for them. I am sick and tired of hearing them talk about that. Being in government and having a chance to reach out to families in East Lothian is not what is tough in life; what is tough for people is working out how they are going to fill up their car at the Co-op in Tranent next weekend in order to keep their family on the road. That is what is tough.

Mr Speaker rightly criticised the hon. Member for Burnley (Gordon Birtwistle) for bringing an electronic device into the Chamber. I presume that the hon. Gentleman has been running around for the past half hour trying to find a printer somewhere on the estate. I have gone to the trouble of printing off a couple of the representations that I have received from my constituents, and I should like to read them out to the House. One comes from Alec Flynn in Tranent, who says of the fuel price rise:

“We are a small family road haulage business…and we would like your support to fight the price the government plan to put on in the budget”.

I want the Minister to address Alec Flynn’s concerns, and to stop moaning about tough choices.

Scotland Bill

Debate between Fiona O'Donnell and Alan Reid

Tuesday 15th March 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Reid]

That is a fair point. I am fully in favour of proportional representation, but every electoral system can be improved. One way of improving this system would be to move from closed to open lists, which would give the electorate a choice. Another reform is also possible: if cherry-picking of constituencies by regional list Members is considered to be a problem, we can adopt the system in Wales whereby no one can stand both for a constituency and on the regional list. That would remove the problem of cherry-picking at a stroke, because there would be no advantage for a regional list Member in cherry-picking a particular constituency.

[Fiona O’Donnell]

Does the hon. Gentleman agree that we have already seen improvements, such as the removal from the list of the vanity party that was “Alex Salmond for First Minister”?

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Reid]

There is no way of predicting what would have happened, because we do not know how people would have used their later preferences. The hon. Gentleman’s analysis is of interest, but I do not think we can make any such assumption.

[Fiona O'Donnell]

Does the hon. Gentleman agree that, once again, the constitutional cuckoo, the SNP, has benefited from a system drawn up by the Scottish Constitutional Convention, with which it did not even engage?

[Mr Reid]

I was certainly disappointed that the SNP did not engage, but it benefited from a system that had widespread support throughout Scotland and was endorsed by the Scottish people in a referendum.

Scotland Bill

Debate between Fiona O'Donnell and Alan Reid

Monday 7th March 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Reid]

The hon. Gentleman is perfectly correct—[hon. Members: “Oh!”] I did not say in what he was correct. He was correct when he said that the hon. Member for Perth and North Perthshire stated that he wanted all professions regulated separately in Scotland. However, my point was that SNP Members have not tabled an amendment to that effect, which I suspect indicates that even they lack confidence in their case.

[Fiona O'Donnell]

Perhaps I could assist the hon. Gentleman in correcting my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow South West (Mr Davidson). He was wrong in omitting to point out that not only did the Lib Dems come sixth in Barnsley, they lost their deposit.

[Mr Reid]

I suspect that if I respond to that intervention, Mr Hoyle, you will rule me out of order.

To go back in order, if as the SNP suggests all health care professions—doctors, dentists and so on—are regulated separately in Scotland, it would add more cost and bureaucracy. It would also mean that a doctor who is qualified in Scotland and who wants to move to England would have to get separate qualifications, and vice versa. That would not benefit patients, and nor would it assist professional development.