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Adults with Learning Disabilities

That is exactly the point that I was making. I have criticisms to make of the Government as well, because when I was a Minister, I made an announcement that Government documents would all be produced in easy-read format. Very quickly, and without anyone saying so, things changed so that health documents would be produced in easy-read format; and then it was health documents pertaining to learning disabilities. The very least that we should aspire to, in my view, is that every Green Paper and White Paper should be produced in easy-read format. That is the least that people with a learning disability are entitled to expect. One of their fundamental rights is to be able to be involved in the democratic process with the rest of us. I am, however, quibbling with my hon. Friend the Member for Hendon, because the report is excellent. Nevertheless, we need to recognise the practicalities of addressing some of the issues raised in it. I am four-square behind my hon. Friend, for example, in recognising the fact people with learning disabilities do not have the access to health care that they should. We have tried to ensure that people with a learning disability are entitled to an annual health check. Quite often they do not report their health problems or seek access to their GP or health services. If we could be more proactive about spotting their health problems we could deal with that. One difficulty—which goes back to the point made by the hon. Member for Eddisbury (Mr. O'Brien)—is that many people with learning disabilities do not want to be recognised in their doctor's records as having a learning disability; so how is the poor old doctor meant to contact them once a year to invite them to their annual health check? There are complex issues involved in dealing with that, and a measure of positive discrimination is required to get people with learning disabilities into their GPs' surgeries. Another matter about which I am passionate is independent living and the efforts we need to make to get as many people as we can into independent living. I am an adviser to the Learning Disability Coalition, as is the hon. Member for Buckingham (John Bercow), who is engaged elsewhere in the House this afternoon; otherwise he would have attended this debate. The coalition is a group of campaigning organisations trying to make sure that we put the right resources and support behind learning-disabled people, and I brought a delegation to meet the Minister earlier this week. In the delegation was a young lady called Victoria Willson. She is 38 years old, and was there with her mum, Jean Willson. Victoria has complex multiple disabilities; she is severely learning disabled, and needs 24-hour care, seven days a week. For a big chunk of the day, she needs two people to support her, to keep her safe. The rest of the time, she needs one person. Even at night, when she is asleep, she shares a carer with another disabled person, who lives in the same place as her. It is a complex level of support. Victoria is a trailblazer for independent living for people with a learning disability, because her mum and family put the package of care together before it became part of the Government's agenda, and had to fight to get it in place. They shared with us the cost of providing support at that level. It costs £3,463.17 a week. Social services pay 42 per cent. of that, the health service pays 37 per cent., the independent living fund pays 20 per cent. and Victoria herself contributes 1 per cent. from her resources and benefits. It is very expensive, but it means that effectively she is living independently. If her parents passed away she could continue the life that she lives. She has, at the age of 38, been living successfully in that environment for a long time. When I was a Health Minister, I visited Wigan, which has a great record on promoting independent living, where I met a gentleman with complex learning disabilities who was living in residential care. To help him express his needs, the people working with him helped him to produce a life map—a pictorial map of how he saw himself and the world around him, and what he wanted his world to be in future. What did he identify in his life map? A little flat that he could live in by himself, and a girlfriend. Those were the things he wanted in his life. They set about using a personal budget to help him to achieve those things, and he now lives in the flat. I do not know whether he managed to get the girlfriend—that is not within the remit of the local social services—but he is now living an independent life. If people whose needs are that complex can live independent lives with the right levels of support, anyone can. Having said that, the barriers to living such independent lives are often the people who love the individual most—parents who do not think their children can be safe living independent lives. A huge effort is needed to make those things happen.