---

Welfare Reform Bill

My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Browning, for her honest and enlightening contribution. I speak as a doctor and as a mother; I have two adult children who are in receipt of disability living allowance. I wish to talk about the medical approach to disability. As a doctor, I have often been accused of being a very medical model, usually by disabled people. The medical model to disability is reductionist. Many doctors and other health professionals do not understand the social model; they do not understand the social, practical and environmental barriers that people with physical and mental impairments face. I support the amendment, but it would require skilled and sensitive assessments to be available and they would need to be delivered by people who understand the social model.