Social Security (Personal Independence Payment) (Amendment) Regulations 2017 — House of Lords, 2017-03-27
Topic: Social Welfare
Kevin Shinkwin (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, I declare an interest as a recipient of the higher-rate mobility component of disability living allowance, which, as noble Lords will know, is being replaced by PIP. As someone with a severe, permanent and constant disability, I depend on DLA for my mobility because it enables me to lease a car through Motability. Indeed, it gives me great pleasure to put on record my profound personal thanks to Motability, and particularly its founder, my noble friend Lord Sterling of Plaistow, for the phenomenal difference that that organisation has made to disabled people’s lives in its first 40 years. Long may it continue And long may targeted support continue for those whose need is greatest for help with meeting the extra costs of living with a disability. The most help to those who need it most: that is surely a founding principle of our welfare state, and the enduring basis of public confidence in the system that underpins the public’s willingness to fund the welfare state so generously through their taxes. As the then Deputy Prime Minister, Nick Clegg, rightly said in 2012: "One of the things about governing is it forces you to confront the inconvenient truths oppositions choose to ignore" One of those truths is that sustaining public trust in the welfare system is crucial to sustaining that system, which I and millions of disabled people rely on, so it is vital that the money gets spent where it is meant to and is seen to be so. I believe the taxpayer does not have a problem with someone needing assistance as a result of difficulties in navigating—for example, if they are blind. Taxpayers surely understand that conditions such as visual impairments and learning disabilities, where these are severe and enduring, are much less likely to fluctuate than, for example, psychological distress. Indeed, it makes sense that people who cannot navigate due to a visual or cognitive impairment are likely to have a higher level of need and therefore face higher costs. Some noble Lords seem to believe that the world would be different if only their party was in power. Yet where their party is in power, running councils such as Lambeth, it is adding to the cost of living with a disability. One way in which it is doing this is by giving parking tickets to disabled people who come home late from work to find that there are no parking spaces available outside their home and therefore have to park on yellow lines. Will the council give them a designated disabled parking space outside their home, as would happen less than a mile away in Westminster? No, it is not council policy. So today, in 2017, Lambeth Council is penalising some disabled people and imposing extra costs on them for a need directly related to their being disabled. What a policy. How do I know it is doing this? Because I am the person who cannot find anywhere else to park after returning home late from your Lordships’ House, yet my request for a designated disabled parking bay has been rejected out of hand This is just one example of why we urgently need to join the dots on disability if more disabled people are, as we all want, to live independently and work. Until we join those dots, I cannot in all honesty justify expecting taxpayers to be even more generous in helping to meet the extra costs of living with a disability, when the state itself imposes such indefensible extra costs on disabled people. Despite my sincere and profound respect for the noble Baronesses, Lady Campbell of Surbiton and Lady Thomas of Winchester, I therefore cannot support the Motions.