Green Paper debate in Parliament – Hansard

http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200809/cmhansrd/cm091029/debtext/91029-0010.htm#09102935000001

Some of the questions asked :

Mr. David Anderson (Blaydon) (Lab):
I just want to pick up on the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Luton, North (Kelvin Hopkins). Can we be clear that the Secretary of State is not ruling out discussions on the type of model that has been proposed by my hon. Friend—a model that should be fully funded by tax or national insurance? Although that is not one of the options in the Green Paper, will the Secretary of State, as he said, be listening and not ruling it out? If he wants to rule it out, I will go home now and get the 2 o’clock train.

Angela Browning (Tiverton and Honiton) (Con):
In the context of the figures that the Secretary of State has just announced, when he considers the results of the consultation will he pay particular attention to the fact that as the population gets older, and given that older people have a higher level of dependency, so, within families, do their carers? Increasingly, pensioners are looking after even older pensioners who are their dependants. He cannot ignore that, because the strain on older people in a caring role is very great.

The Princess Royal Trust for Carers and Crossroads Care

Carer Watch have received the following answers to questions we asked of these groups.

Sorry for the delay in getting back to you with the answers to the questions. These are the answers from both charities and do come back to us with any questions.

1. Do you believe CA should be kept seperate from the main benefit system?

We believe that carers’ benefits should be raised, that more carers should be eligible for benefits and that more effort should be made to increase uptake of carers’ benefits. We also think that more should be done to help carers who wish to find and maintain work alongside smaller, more manageable caring roles and we would like to see more flexibility in the benefits system so that carers were not penalised when they take up part time work. When any proposals are made to change the benefit system that might affect carers, we consult with our networks of Carers’ Centres and Crossroads Care schemes to gain the opinions of carers and base our response on that. We have not canvassed opinion on the issue of whether CA should remain separate, but we know that any changes that risk lowering rather than raising carers’ benefits would be very unpopular with the hundreds of thousands of carers to whom we offer support.

2. What are your thoughts about the proposal that was deferred, of moving carers to a modified version of JSA?

We campaigned against that proposal which was part of the Department of Work & Pensions Green Paper July 08 – ‘No one written off’. We put our objections to the then Secretary of State James Purnell MP at a meeting with him just a few days before he announced that the proposals would be dropped from the White Paper published December 2008.

3. The govt has mentioned in the Green paper for Social Care that ‘some’ disability benefits ‘may’ move to local authorities to help fund care, Do you see this as a step forward or a negative move for those needing care, if such a proposal became a reality.

We have not finished our consultation with carers and our Networks on the Green Paper yet. We know that some Carers’ Centres and Crossroads Care schemes are still holding meetings with local carers. However, many carers have made their objections to these proposals known and we would include this in our official response to Government.

We do think that Attendance Allowance, for instance, offers the type of freedom and control that the Government is trying to encourage through personal budgets and we are concerned that the Attendance Allowance budget would not be moved to provide other kinds of early intervention and preventative support for those who do not meet high eligibility thresholds, but might instead disappear into councils’ budgets. We are also concerned that social care packages are lower if there is a carer, those pepole with carers would not receive an increase in social care support equivalent to what they had lost in AA value.

4. Do you believe that the option of funding social care in the future through General taxation should have been left on the table to ensure a true debate took place?.

Yes. The social care funding ‘gap’ is a fraction of the money spent on other policy areas, including the NHS. We recognise that in consultations the public have been keen on the idea of fully funded social care but reluctant to see taxes raised, but we would have preferred this option to have been fully part of the debate.

Gordon
Joint Policy & Parliamentary Officer
The Princess Royal Trust for Carers and Crossroads Care

Means-test welfare reform is a costly waste, says Peter Beresford

Once, when people talked about welfare reform, it meant trying to improve the lives of people as service users, citizens and claimants. Now it is more likely to mean another attack on people on benefits or a search for an easy way of making public spending cuts. But we can expect to hear much more about welfare reform in the coming months, with a general election pending and politicians on the lookout for easy targets for party-political points scoring and economies.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2009/oct/28/means-test-welfare-benefits

Learning Disability Coalition: Green paper fails younger adults

A learning disability leader has reiterated concerns that the government’s adult care funding green paper does not address current and future shortfalls in funding for disabled adults of working age.

Anthea Cox, director of the Learning Disability Coalition, told a Community Care conference on the green paper that the policy document was skewed towards meeting the needs of older people, despite significant pressures on learning disability budgets.

http://www.communitycare.co.uk/Articles/2009/10/28/112996/learning-disability-coalition-green-paper-fails-younger-adults.html

Concern at Attendance Allowance threat

Speaking the day before the debate in the House of Commons on the Labour government’s Green Paper: ‘Shaping the future of care together,’ takes place on Thursday 29th October, the SNP’s Westminster spokesperson on social security and benefits, John Mason MP, warned the Labour government to abandon their proposed reform of Attendance Allowance.

“Labour are squeezing benefits to lone parents, the working-age disabled, and the long-term unemployed. I call on this UK Labour government not to cut benefits to the severely disabled elderly as well.”

http://www.snp.org/node/15814

Disability Living Allowance – National Care Service

It’s a start, but nowhere near enough.

Health secretary Andy Burnham has said that he has ‘heard the concerns and worries about disability living allowance’. As a result, he has announced that:

“I can state categorically that we have now ruled out any suggestion that DLA for
under-65s will be brought into the new National Care Service.”

Good news indeed . . . for some . . . for the moment.

But definitely not for the one and a half million people who depend on AA.  Nor for the for the three quarters of a million people aged 65 and over who receive DLA. Not even for the 400,000 DLA claimants currently aged between 60 and 64, many of whom will have reached the age of 65 by the time labour’s proposed National Care Service is introduced. Because, of course, DLA is not just paid to people under 65. You have to make your claim before you are 65, but you can then go on claiming indefinitely if your needs do not change. Unfortunately, many organisations who should know better seem to have forgotten that – perhaps just as the government hoped.

Because Mr Burnham made no secret about why he made this announcement: he wants to shut people up. He said in his speech, given at a conference in Harrogate on 22nd October and also published on the Big Care Debate website:

“One avenue I do want to close down, however, is the debate and controversy over Disability Living Allowance.”

In that ambition, he seems to have succeeded, at least so far as some disability charities are concerned.  Immediately following Burnham’s speech, Disability Alliance sent out a press release stating that:

“. . . the Disability Living Allowance (DLA) benefit will not be affected by Government plans to merge some benefits with social care funding . . . Andy Burnham’s announcement will reassure disabled people that DLA is safe – for now at least.”

The Disability Charities Consortium told the media:

“This represents a real victory for disabled people who felt very strongly that the DLA should be retained and made their collective voice heard on this issue. ”

Macmillan Cancer Support also issued a press release saying that:

“Whilst we are pleased the Government has said Disability Living Allowance (DLA) will not be used to meet the shortfall in social care funding, we remain deeply concerned that Attendance Allowance (AA) is still under threat.”

But that isn’t what Andy Burnham said at all. He said DLA for under 65’s is not being considered.  This was echoed by Yvette Cooper MP, the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions who told a meeting of the All Party Parliamentary Group on ME on 21st October that DLA for people of ‘working age’ is not under review.  It was also made clear by Burnham that there will be no transitional protection of existing awards for current claimants. Instead, ‘an equivalent level of support’ will be provided by your local authority.

Burnham’s announcement seems to have had the desired effect, however – the ‘debate and controversy’ over DLA appears to be over as far as some disability charities are concerned. Yet, in a little over two weeks time the deadline for submissions on the
green paper ends.

It’s vital that the case for saving DLA for all claimants is still made. Only now there is a real worry that not only have the disability charities relaxed, but also that Burnham will claim that because 3,000 submissions to the Big Care Debate were made before his announcement that DLA for under 65s is safe, they should mostly be discounted.

If you don’t want the government to get away with closing down ‘the debate and controversy over Disability Living Allowance’ there are things you can do.

Contact disability groups you have a connection with and warn them that they still need to respond to the green paper in relation to both DLA and AA.

Respond to the Care Green paper yourself, again if necessary, making it clear that you are aware that DLA for under 65s is not under consideration and giving your views on axing AA and DLA for people aged 65 and over.

Web: http://careandsupport.direct.gov.uk/greenpaper/execsum/

Email: careandsupport@dh.gsi.gov.uk

Rouse people to sign the No 10 petition, which is gathering real momentum again: it now has over 19,000 signatures and is at number 8 out of over four and a half thousand petitions on the site. Not bad going for a petition that has been running for less than two months.

http://petitions.number10.gov.uk/AttendanceA/

Tell your MP what you think or, better still, go and visit them and tell them face-to-face.

One final thought. The revelation that the government is considering slashing the income of 2.5 million older disabled claimants was made by Andy Burnham in a keynote
speech last week. The subject of that speech?

Outlawing ageism in the NHS.

Please feel free to forward or publish this article, which is also available online at: http://www.benefitsandwork.co.uk/news/latest-news/1118-dla-saved–for-some

POST YOUR NEWS
Finally, remember that you can post your news in the Benefits and Work forum, if you’re a member, at:

http://www.benefitsandwork.co.uk/forum?func=showcat&catid=13

and or in the free welfare watch forums at:

http://welfarewatch.myfineforum.org/index.php

You can also keep up with news about opposition to the green paper at the Carer Watch campaign blog:

http://carerwatch.com/cuts/

Welfare Reform Bill – Single working age benefit – Lord McKenzie

Lord McKenzie of Luton:-

“I make it categorically and absolutely clear once again that it is not our intention to move carers off income support until we have looked carefully at their position as part of our work on long-term care, and until we have a clear and detailed plan for the longer term which includes the right provision for carers.”

…

“There is a long-held aspiration of heading for a single working-age benefit, with all the personalisation and benefits that will come with it. It would be a step along the way to have two working age benefits rather than three, and that is an achievement for which we should strive.”

http://www.theyworkforyou.com/lords/?id=2009-10-22a.862.0&s=Carers#g898.1

http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld200809/ldhansrd/text/91022-0014.htm#09102244000028

reverse plan to scrap Disability Living Allowance

Andy Burnham is expected to reverse plan to scrap Disability Living Allowance but will he?

The Secretary of State for Health has made it clear that Disability Living Allowance for the Under 65s will not be affected by Government plans to create a National Care Service.

Tomorrow Andy Burnham will also use a major speech on social care to reverse the plan to scrap the disability living allowance, which would have saved the Government £4.4 billion – money which was earmarked to help meet the cost of the country’s burgeoning social care bill.

Mr Burnham will also say that he will not go ahead with a plan to scrap the disability living allowance. The move had been suggested in the green paper on social care which is part of the Government’s attempt to tackle the problem of the costs of long term care.

http://careandsupport.direct.gov.uk/news/2009/10/health-secretary-clarifies-government-position-on-disability-benefits/

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/healthnews/6400326/Age-discrimination-in-NHS-must-end-says-Andy-Burnham.html

http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2009/oct/22/social-care-nhs-disability-allowance

ADASS considers lobbying government on tax for care

Social services directors are considering telling the government that they were wrong to rule out funding adult social care through increased taxation.

At a meeting of the Association of Directors of Adult Social Services’ (ADASS) executive council yesterday, members noted that there was still widespread interest in the tax option.
The government has already discounted this as unviable, in its consultation Shaping the future of care together.

But during discussion of the ADASS draft response to the green paper one director said: “There has been a strong groundswell of opinion that we should not eliminate the tax option.”

http://www.communitycare.co.uk/Articles/2009/10/21/112928/adass-considers-lobbying-government-on-tax-for-care.html

Welfare Reform Bill is blot on social care landscape – Peter Beresford

Peter Beresford writes:-

“Only a matter of weeks to go now for the consultation on the social care green paper: Care, Support, Independence: Shaping the future of care together.  But I won’t be the first service user or carer to say that we can’t consider the green paper without also taking into account the Welfare Reform Bill. “

http://www.communitycare.co.uk/blogs/social-care-experts-blog/2009/10/welfare-reform-bill-is-blot-on.html