MP Challenges ministers over fees for young disabled

5.05.30pm UTC (GMT +0000) Wed 6th Apr 2005

MP Challenges ministers over fees for young disabled

Vincent Cable raised in parliament on Monday, with Alan Johnson, the Work and Pensions minister, what he called the "cruel anomaly" of young people with learning difficulties who are facing a major barrier to basic skills courses at the Tertiary College in the form of prohibitively expensive fees, because they are in receipt of certain benefits (invalidity benefit and disability living allowance).

Vincent Cable said that he had been alerted to the problem by Richmond Tertiary College and had written to Ruth Kelly, Secretary of State for Education as well as Alan Johnson: "there are several dozen young people with learning disabilities in the area who could, with encouragement and training, hold down a job, and want to work. But the benefit system and a lack of joined up government mean that they are discouraged and the considerable handicaps they face are compounded. The minister does however seem to be listening and I am optimistic we shall get somewhere".

Extract from Hansard

Dr. Vincent Cable (Twickenham) (LD): Further to that answer, is the Secretary of State aware of the cruel anomaly affecting people with learning disabilities? If they take advantage of non-means-tested benefits such as incapacity benefit and disability living allowance, they find themselves obliged to pay prohibitive fees to do basic skills courses under the supported learning programme. Will he talk to the Secretary of State for Education and Skills about resolving that failure of joined-up government?

Alan Johnson: I might not describe it as a failure of joined-up government, but I do accept that there is a problem and that there is more that we can do about the particular problems faced by people in the situation that the hon. Gentleman describes. Yes, it is an issue that needs to be resolved. With continuing investment in the new deal, and as we build on the new deal and some other projects that the Chancellor announced in the Budget report, we can move matters on. The hon. Gentleman has a valid point, which we will take into consideration, and which we are, indeed, working on at the moment.