Orders of the Day — Clause 19

Part of the debate – in the House of Commons at 9:45 pm on 19 May 1986.

Alert me about debates like this

Photo of Mr Roy Galley Mr Roy Galley , Halifax 9:45, 19 May 1986

I must be clear from our debates in Committee and on Report that firm arrangements will have to be made for the small groups of severely disabled people who may be disadvantaged as a result of the withdrawal of single payments.

In Committee we spoke of groups of perhaps 2,000 or 4,000 people who can accumulate significant single payments, particularly those for domestic care and attendance. Those debates ended to concentrate on the social fund and not on an addition to income support.

However one approaches the matter, there may be difficulties of definition and interpretation of terms such as "community care" and to other wide phrases such as those in the amendment, and, indeed, those in the amendment that I tabled to the social fund provision in Committee. It is abundantly clear that some method must be found to overcome the problem.

The social fund may be a better, more appropriate and flexible way of dealing with the problem. The right hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent, South (Mr. Ashley) is wrong to say that it is rubbish to suggest using the social fund. It may be an appropriate way of solving the problem flexibly and sensibly. However, we need — tonight, if possible—assurances from the Government about how the social fund will be operated to meet these needs.

From the Green Paper onwards, it has always been intended that an element for community care needs will be included in the social fund. The details have remained extremely sketchy, and perhaps there is still some thinking to be done, but I hope that my hon. Friend the Minister for Social Security will come to a conclusion in the near future about how the community care element of the social fund will be operated to give some security and confidence to severely disabled people who would lose out under the system that is currently proposed. There must be consistency between local areas. I hope that we shall not have to use the appeals procedure every time to achieve that consistency.

The hon. Member for Caernarfon (Mr. Wigley) mentioned the problem of social fund officers having the medical or social work expertise to make the appropriate assessments for payments. One solution might be to set aside community care money within the social fund that could be operated voluntarily by experts who are somewhat independent of the Department. We need a firm, clear and secure arrangement, which involves regular, intermediate or instalment payments. I believe that my hon. Friend the Minister made some concessions to us on that point in Committee and that he is moving towards some regularity of payment. Indeed, there is an amendment that may take us in that direction and give us more flexibility.

I turn again to the problems of the terminally ill and to the difficulties that they often face when claiming, for example, attendance allowance. Hon. Members should remember the 26-week rule and the bureaucratic difficulties of obtaining such aid. Community care must take the needs of the terminally ill into account. I would be counter-productive if my hon. Friend did no make arrangements to keep people in the community with security of funding. The alternative is institutionalisation, which is expensive, unnecessary, wrong for the person concerned and counter to Government policy. Therefore, some arrangements must be made for the sake of the individuals concerned and in the interest of the Government themselves.