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Welfare Reform

My Lords, I am afraid that I cannot give the noble Lord any greater comfort than did the Secretary of State in another place. We are sympathetic to the RNIB’s proposals and are aware of the public and parliamentary support for them. While we acknowledge that severely sight-impaired people may have mobility difficulties, especially as regards helping them to enter or remain in paid employment, we are not able to commit to any changes in the mobility component of DLA at this time. We certainly believe that enabling all disabled people, including those with visual impairments, into employment through increased provision for access to work should remain our priority. That is why the Green Paper commits us to provide additional funding on the basis that we just discussed. We are very grateful for the time and effort given by the RNIB in pressing its case. This effort has not been wasted. We hope that we can continue to work collaboratively during the Green Paper consultation period to ensure that our programme of welfare reform adequately meets the needs of blind people. I am conscious that is not the statement the noble Lord hoped for, but it is as far as I can go this afternoon.