I welcome the hon. Member for Nottingham, North (Mr. Allen) to the Dispatch Box—in taking part in a debate rather than asking questions—and wish him well. No man who could remove Gary Sobers twice in a fortnight from the wicket can be bereft of a certain quality. I congratulate him on that and on his succession to the Opposition Front Bench. Although in the summer we played in the same team together, whereas now we are condemned to be on opposing sides, I hope that the spirit that was engendered on those earlier occasions will pervade our discussions.

I assure the hon. Gentleman that in no sense do I regard the troubles of, or individuals who suffer from, severe disability as a problem. Our job, as the Government and as a legislature, is to see this as an opportunity to enable disabled people to enjoy a quality of life that has been denied their predecessors and many of them.

Much has happened. I will not go over the ground that I have covered on other occasions in saying why I believe that the next 10 years will be important in terms of improving the quality of life and accessibility of disabled people to opportunities in employment, leisure and independent living that the rest of us can take for granted.

I am anxious to play my part to the greatest possible extent in bringing that about, and I know, because of the all-party Select Committee, on which the right hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent, South (Mr. Ashley) and my hon. Friend the Member for Exeter (Mr. Hannam) play an important part, that, when hon. Members discuss these issues, they do not discuss them on a partisan basis. We want genuinely to help people with disabilities. Perhaps I run some gentle danger elsewhere in Government if I say that I welcome the pressure that I am frequently put under by hon. Members in urging me to do still better.

We are discussing, in particular, the independent living fund. I take a personal interest, and some satisfaction, in the way in which the ILF has developed and expanded. I recall approaching the present Prime Minister when he was Chief Secretary to the Treasury to persuade him to produce £5 million for the fund, whereas the budget this year is £62 million. It has been a great success, not least because it has identified a real need in the community and gives disabled people the chance to exercise control over the provision made for them. It ensures that they are not simply told that somebody can come at a particular time of day that suits the timetable of the social services department. Instead, choice can be exercised about the nature and extent of the care that they are given.

I should like to underline the compliment paid by my hon. Friend the Member for Eastleigh (Sir D. Price) to Mrs. Tumim and the other trustees of the independent living fund. I doubt whether any of them realised the extent of the work that they were undertaking when they took on the responsibility. They have carried out that work with sympathy, flexibility and imagination. I congratulate the chairman and, although it is invidious to pick out a single trustee, make a special mention of Pauline Thompson of the Disablement Income Group, who has played a most constructive role in the affairs of the independent living fund since its introduction.

5 pm

I recognise that the new clause is a device to obtain assurances about the long-term future of the independent living fund, but I am bound to say a word or two about the merits of the new clause. The most satisfactory way forward is not to put it on a statutory, regulated basis. By 1993–94, we expect that the adjudication officers in our Department will be making about 20,000 decisions a week on disability living allowance. They will thus have to be very much concerned with the regulations for that benefit.

One of the most important parts of the magic of the ILF is that trained social workers make individual visits, go in some depth into the needs of disabled people and come up with a package to meet those needs. However worthy our staff are in the Department of Social Security, because of the pressure under which they are working, 1 doubt whether they could provide such attention and sympathy to the needs of individual disabled people in the same way as the ILF provides at present.

I understand the concern of the right hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent, South and of other hon. Members who have spoken in the debate about the ability of local authorities to pick up those cases. I reiterate that, as the ILF has been running in recent years, I have been worried about the number of local authorities that have, in essence, been passing on cases to the ILF that should properly have been the responsibility of local authority social services departments. It has been an easy option for them to take when there are other priorities competing for their budgets.

I stand by what I said in Committee, that I believe that the vast majority of cases that, at present, are the responsibility—