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Welfare Reform

My Lords, there are a number of things to welcome about the Green Paper, which is the subject of the Statement repeated by the noble Lord. I warmly welcome the doubling of the Access to Work budget, which will be able to do a great deal more not only to enable disabled people to get into work, but to prevent those at risk of losing their job when they become disabled from falling out of the workforce. Conditionality depends very much on the adequacy of support to enable people who are far from the labour market to get closer to it. We shall monitor that very closely. I was disappointed that the Green Paper contained no reference to removing the anomaly whereby registered blind people are not eligible for the higher rate of the mobility component of disability living allowance. Constructive discussions have taken place between the RNIB and the Government about the removal of this anomaly. I declare an interest as chairman of the RNIB. I understood that the Government felt they were not in a position to fund the removal of this anomaly at present. However, during the discussions going right up to the publication of the Green Paper today, I understood that the Government were committed to remove the anomaly at the earliest possible date. I apologise to the noble Lord that I missed the first few minutes of his repetition of the Statement; I was listening to the discussion of it in the other place. The Secretary of State was asked about the removal of the anomaly. All he could say was that he was not against its removal in principle and would continue to work to deliver that. That does not seem to me to be in the spirit of the constructive discussions between the RNIB and the Government to which I referred.