Clause 28
10:00 am
Jonathan R Shaw (Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Disabled People; Minister for the South East), Department for Work and Pensions; Chatham and Aylesford, Labour)
The Government have made a commitment to devolving choice to the individual regarding services, but to answer those questions fully one needs to make an assessment—hence the piloting. There are different sets of legislation on the different issues of parents’ responsibilities and children’s rights. If we were to set our face and say, “This is how it’s going to be,” before the outcome of those pilots or trailblazers—whatever fantastic word we want to attach to them—the hon. Gentleman might accuse us of having an ideology without having worked out how to do things. We need to understand those complexities, and we are fully committed to doing so.
My colleagues and I have set out our ambition many times, and I know that the hon. Gentleman shares that ambition. It is also welcome to people who depend on services and who want to be empowered by being in control of care and support services as well as services that support them in work or other aspects of their lives. He is right to talk about that transition period between childhood and adulthood, and I know that my colleague, the Minister of State, Department of Health, my hon. Friend the Member for Corby (Phil Hope), is working on that aspect at the moment. It seems to be one of our biggest challenges to get that policy right. It is sometimes frustrating, as a Minister, tying up different Departments, and it is frustrating as a constituency MP to see that two different departments in a local authority area do not always talk to one another as they might to serve our constituents’ needs.
We are committed to piloting this matter. The hon. Gentleman will be aware of and will support, I am sure, Aiming High for Disabled People, into which we are putting additional resources. Indeed, the Aiming High for Disabled Children programme has allocated £1 million in 2009-10, and £1 million in 2010-11, to cover the costs of individual budget pilots for disabled children. So we are putting resources in, as well as having ambition, but we need to establish what works.