Disabled Persons (Independent Living) Bill [HL]

My Lords, the Second Reading is an important stage of any Bill, but this is the third Second Reading that this Bill has been given. On the previous two occasions, the Government gave the Bill a warm welcome but then said, "Thanks, but no thanks". I hope that they will give a different response today. In preparing the Bill, I have been assisted by the Royal Association for Disability and Rehabilitation, led by Caroline Ellis, and another significant contributor is my personal assistant, Trina Pott. Basically, the Government’s objections boil down to the cost of the Bill, its timing or the need for it at all; there is, they imply, sufficient legislation for Britain’s 11 million disabled people. Let us examine that statement and see whether they still stick by it. It is nonsense to say that there is sufficient legislation for these 11 million people because if the legal and other provisions were adequate there would not be the sustained protests from millions of disabled people and there would be no need for a Minister for Disabled People. How can the Government claim that there is no need for this Bill when the vast majority of councils refuse to support disabled people within their areas? Some councils provide the absolute minimum of social assistance; they provide food and a wash for people in need. It is a policy dictated by a Scrooge-like mentality, but it is not good enough and must be changed. Suggestions and recommendations from the Government and other authorities are fine, but they are not a patch on mandatory provisions. The Bill would ensure that responsibility for providing wider resources is made obligatory. In other words, disabled people would be entitled to the provisions and would not need to argue for them. For example, the Bill would place a clear duty on local authorities and NHS bodies to co-operate between themselves and with key partners to provide the means of independent living. It would require them to provide funds whenever necessary to deliver the duties contained in the Bill. This would avoid the multiple assessments, delays in augmentation and the fragmentation in care which exists at present. Significant gains would be made by the Bill. The Bill provides a clear right to self-assessment of disabled people’s requirements for assistance and support. This is the very heart of the Bill. The right to self-assessment of their requirements is crucial and would ensure that any support given is what the people themselves want and need, rather than their having to wait for the local authority to give them what it thinks they ought to have. So far, disabled people have been expected to fit into services, but the Bill provides that services should be personalised after assessment and therefore suit the person. It also provides that disabled people should be empowered to determine where they live and who they live with. If the Bill is passed, it would be unlawful to force anyone into an institution against their will. Today there are people who have been sent into institutions against there will, which is shocking and disgraceful. As a lack of information can cripple any efforts to provide for disabled people, the Bill provides that authorities would have to identify all the disabled people in their area and maintain a register. They would also have to provide a wide range of assistance, such as communication aids and other forms of helpful equipment, technology, independent advocacy and practical assistance in the home and elsewhere. There would be a new system of individualised budgets. The present range of different services to help with personal care, support, equipment and adaptations would all be brought together. Disabled people would be able to use their individual budgets in the form of care or social services, or a mixture of both, to spend on housing, equipment, personal assistance, transport or whatever they desire. A crucial part of the Bill is that regulations would be made specifying minimum outcomes. That is designed to prevent local authorities from wriggling out of their responsibilities. Regulations would ensure that there was no doubt about where that responsibility lay. Of course these changes would have to be paid for, but we need to bear in mind the important economic benefits of investing in independent living. As people become independent and return to work, they earn from employment and pay taxes. There would also be savings on the social security budget. Another consequence would be a reduction in manpower for social services as people became active and got back to work. Disabled people have always found housing to be a bugbear, but the Bill would create a disability housing service. Each local authority would have to provide a list of accessible properties and a record of disabled people requiring such properties, and then provide a matching service. The terrible shortfall of accessible housing would no longer be a problem because people would be fitted to properties through that matching service, or to new dwellings of whatever type. That would be a huge saving for the authorities and avoid the heavy cost of later adaptations. Nowhere in the existing community care provisions will we find any reference to choice, control, dignity or equality. Disabled people are as much entitled to those as anybody else but social services departments routinely make decisions that contradict those fundamental values. We intend to stop that. The Bill would empower disabled people to assess their own support and needs, but if they needed an advocate they could get one. That would give the disabled person the right to be told what they are entitled to and to create their own package. It would give people a real choice between managing their budget with practical assistance, by replacing it with a trusted person or an organisation to manage it on their behalf, or taking statutory services in lieu of cash. These are important changes. The new framework would provide for a national minimum guaranteed entitlement so that postcode lotteries were eradicated. It would make freedom of movement possible for disabled people. By introducing portable support pages, disabled people could move from one local authority to another for jobs or other reasons. That would negate the necessity of undergoing another assessment to negotiate another package from scratch. The Bill would also fill the legal gap of the absence in law of offering protection against unnecessary institutionalisation. It would prevent a person being institutionalised against their wishes or on the grounds of financial expediency. For those in private and voluntary care homes, the Bill would provide the full protection of the Human Rights Act. I offer the Bill to the House as the best hope of a "New Deal" for Britain’s disabled people. They have suffered neglect and even ostracism for too long. It is time that they came in from the cold. I beg to move.