INDEPENDENT LIVING FOR PEOPLE WITH DISABILITIES

That this House welcomes the contribution that disabled people have made to their communities as a result of the Independent Living Movement over the last 50 years; has serious concerns about the potential impact of Choice, Equity and Affordability policies that are being introduced by clinical commissioning groups and local authorities which place artificial financial limits on the care packages they will provide in the community, arbitrarily reducing larger care packages for individuals with higher levels of need to the size of care packages for individuals with lower levels of need; believes that these policies will undermine health, well-being and independence, and could force disabled people to choose between inadequate care in the community or having to move into residential care; and calls on the Government to urgently review the resources it makes available to health and social care providers and those receiving care funded by self-directed personal budgets or personal health budgets, to ensure that they have sufficient resources to fulfil their statutory obligations without undoing the progress disabled people have made in living independently and playing a full part in their communities.