Lord Palmer of Childs Hill (LD)

My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Stedman-Scott, for introducing questions on the Statement. She quite rightly talks about missed opportunities of not only the current Government but the previous Government. Welfare provision is a broken system. We should not proceed until we hear from the Timms review. I hope the Minister will comment on that. There is no doubt that we are abandoning valuable members of our society. People within the leadership of the Labour Party who described PIP as “pocket money” should know better. We are enshrining in law that we have a system that all disabled people are equal, but some are more equal than others—this is an early proclamation by the pigs who control government in Animal Farm; the phrase is a comment on the hypocrisy of Governments. Let us be clear: the proposals are a leap in the dark and not even the Ministers know where they are going to land. The proposals are ill thought-out, rushed and continually amended. As days, weeks and months pass, we will see the unedifying and unintended consequences. The access to work scheme for those with a disability needs to be urgently fixed. Could the Minister tell the House what consultations have been made with carers about this legislation? The Universal Credit and Personal Independence Payment Bill sends a message to disabled children that those who have gone down the path of their disability degenerating to the extent that they can claim PIP will be over the line, but those youngsters who know they have a degenerative condition can look forward to no PIP under the Bill. PIP is a passport to other levels of support, such as blue badges or railcards, which give people the opportunity of getting out and living their best lives. Perhaps the most passported benefit from PIP is the carer’s allowance. On these Benches, we have grave concerns about the Bill’s impact on those families who will no longer benefit from carer’s allowances. They will be robbed of up to £12,000 a year. We recognise the benefit system is broken and needs resolving, but it needs to be co-designed with disabled groups and carers groups to make sure that we get it right for our people. The root of the problem, sadly, is the NHS, which is where a lot of these problems start. We really need to sort out the National Health Service and social care. They are part of the problem and the solution. This so-called reform sticks a piece of sticking plaster over it, pats it on the head and says, “Now leave it to Auntie”. Sadly, Auntie has not a clue.