Gary's views

Gary's weekly views

Each week an article by Gary has appeared in the Plympton Plymstock and Ivybridge News in South West Devon. The articles are published here

PRIVATE MEMBERS BILL

I won’t be back to my Plympton home next week until Friday night. Although I hate to be away from the constituency on that busiest of days, the reason is a positive one. I shall be legislating at the House of Commons, or trying to. After 14 years at Westminster, this is my first opportunity to try and introduce my own bill.

Why did I choose to bring in the Disabled Children (Family Support) Bill?

I have long believed that we do not do enough for disabled people and their families. Families with severely disabled children need and deserve more support. In a recent survey, eight in ten families with severely disabled children told Mencap that they were at, or close to, breaking point. Support out there is patchy and inadequate - and in some areas, the level of service is going down. A third of those parents receiving any sort of short break service have reported a cut in the amount of hours they get. My Bill would create a specific duty on local authorities and health agencies to provide short breaks for families caring for the most severely disabled children. These are children that are already eligible for services under the Children Act 1989, but only a tiny minority - one in 13, according to the Commission for Social Care Improvement - are actually getting any support. In addition, if the Bill became law, short break providers would have to show how the breaks were of positive benefit to both the child and the family, guarding against the low-quality breaks that too many families are offered at present.

I am pleased to say that my Bill has cross-party support, but it comes with a price tag. It is unreasonable to impose yet more duties on local authorities and primary care trusts without a funding package to enable extra services to be offered, so the government would have to stump up for this. The timing is auspicious because the government is itself reviewing support for disabled families. I hope that we might be able to agree a way forward together and earnest discussions with ministers are in hand. Fingers crossed!

Any government can kill off a private member’s bill, usually by talking it out. I am hoping this will not happen to mine. It is simply too urgent for those many families who battle so fantastically to bring up their severely disabled children. They deserve a better deal.

posted by Nigel on Monday, February 19, 2007