Baroness Thomas of Winchester: My Lords, I am very grateful to my noble friend Lady Brinton for tabling the amendment, to which I have added my name. There will be a lot of severely disabled people who, like me, are terrified of power cuts. We rely through the day and night on electricity to keep us alive. We are not talking about just hot drinks and hot water bottles. In my case, I am talking about a feeding pump,...
Baroness Thomas of Winchester: My Lords, the Minister has partly replied, but can he say a bit more about Home Office bureaucracy which is holding up the recruitment of care workers from overseas?
Baroness Thomas of Winchester: My Lords, what action are the Government taking to address the need for more accessible housing, and when can we expect a response to the consultation on raising accessible housing standards?
Baroness Thomas of Winchester: My Lords, I declare that I receive disability living allowance. I shall make just one point, but it is an important one for disabled people and must be looked at in the light of the cost-of-living crisis. It is the unacceptable delay in the waiting time for PIP—the personal independence payment—which helps people with long-term conditions manage their day-to-day living costs and get...
Baroness Thomas of Winchester: My Lords, I warmly welcome this Bill and pay tribute to all those people who have made it possible, particularly my old friend David Buxton, chair of the British Deaf Association, and of course the noble Lord, Lord Holmes of Richmond. Some years ago, I met a man who happened to be in charge of the Access to Work programme at the DWP, and I managed to persuade him to fund BSL interpreters for...
Baroness Thomas of Winchester: My Lords, disabled people look forward to being consulted properly on the National Disability Strategy; in particular, on more accessible housing for rent, fair benefit assessments and reliable social care. Does the Minister agree and please will she give us timescales?
Baroness Thomas of Winchester: My Lords, I shall speak in shorthand in this very welcome debate. As a former chair of the Delegated Powers Committee, I am familiar with this battleground, and I have the scars to prove it, particularly from the Public Bodies Bill. First, as the noble Lord, Lord Bridges, said, the practice of bringing framework Bills to Parliament must be discouraged from the outset, however tempted...
Baroness Thomas of Winchester: My Lords, a student I know with the hidden disabilities of ADHD and dyslexia has had very good support from Brunel University because she had been told about DSA not at her school but at her diagnosis. Could the Minister encourage all schools to be more proactive in explaining the benefits of DSA?
Baroness Thomas of Winchester: My Lords, could the Minister say exactly what the Government are doing right now to recruit more carers, in view of the huge shortfall in the workforce? Are they largely leaving it to hard-pressed local authorities?
Baroness Thomas of Winchester: To ask Her Majesty’s Government what steps they are taking in response to the First Tier Tribunal overturning 70 per cent of the decisions of the Department for Work and Pensions in respect of Personal Independence Payments assessments between April and June.
Baroness Thomas of Winchester: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question standing in my name on the Order Paper and declare that I receive a disability benefit.
Baroness Thomas of Winchester: My Lords, I thank the Minister and welcome that reply—as far as it went. However, is it not high time that assessments right now are improved, which would make most of these PIP appeals unnecessary? If assessors need reports from GPs or other healthcare professionals, they should ask for them at the mandatory reconsideration stage. Does the Minister also agree that there is no point in...
Baroness Thomas of Winchester: My Lords, will the Minister look into booster vaccines for vulnerable people such as me who need to be vaccinated at home? There is never any information about this cohort of people who are at the mercy of there being a healthcare professional from a local surgery available. There is a danger that they may be overlooked by surgeries, some of which might be overwhelmed at this time.
Baroness Thomas of Winchester: My Lords, I declare that I receive self-funded care and disability living allowance. I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Pitkeathley, for securing this debate, and for her very powerful opening speech. I will speak very briefly about home carers. This is a growing sector whose growth has been accelerated by the pandemic. As others have said, more money is needed right away to pay such carers a...
Baroness Thomas of Winchester: My Lords, as well as supported housing for disabled people, more wheelchair-accessible housing is greatly needed. What action will the Government take to ensure that it is provided?
Baroness Thomas of Winchester: My Lords, I shall speak about home carers which is something I know about as I have them myself. So, I declare that interest. I feel strongly that being a carer is not a low-skilled job. Even helping to dress a frail, elderly or disabled person safely is a skill which should be recognised. Disabled people might be under the care of well-paid hospital consultants, but the consultants could...
Baroness Thomas of Winchester: To ask Her Majesty’s Government what steps they are taking to ensure that guidance to frontline staff on how to treat vulnerable disability benefit claimants is followed.
Baroness Thomas of Winchester: My Lords, I welcome that reply as far as it goes, but what we need to know now is what measures the Government have in place to identify vulnerable disability claimants who have died, some by suicide and some by serious harm in which the DWP or its contractors may be implicated.
Baroness Thomas of Winchester: My Lords, Amendment 3 seeks to exploit the opportunity—as the noble Baroness, Lady Andrews, said—that the Bill gives the Government to find out whether we have enough public lavatories throughout England, particularly for the growing number of disabled and elderly people, and whether this Bill, after a year, will have had the impact we all hope it will have. I too am grateful to the...
Baroness Thomas of Winchester: My Lords, I so agree with what the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, just said. I support Amendment 11, but am speaking to Amendment 14, which follows Amendment 11 in this group, calling on the Government to undertake a review of the impact of the Act on the provision of accessible lavatories within a year of its passing. There are three reasons why we need to know whether the change in rating for...