MONDAY 12 NOVEMBER 2007

MR IVAN LEWIS AND MRS ANNE MCGUIRE

  Q220  Baroness Stern: Perhaps if you have another view you would let us know.

  Mrs McGuire: No, no. I am always careful in the presence of so many good legal minds not to give a definitive answer on a legal question, but my instinct would be that they would be in breach.

  Mr Lewis: It would be good to get some straight answers from lawyers from time to time to help us with some of these difficult decisions. Can I say one thing that parallels this on carers? We have not touched very much on carers. There is an increasing number of carers of adult sons and daughters with learning disabilities, and I just want to say on that first of all that the Prime Minister will be announcing in the spring a new deal for carers which will look at carers of adults across the board. Very recently we announced a significant new investment in terms of supporting parents of disabled children but also looking at the question of the transition from being a disabled child to becoming a disabled young adult, and there will be a lot more resource in the system specifically for that. Finally, the Prime Minister has set up a standing commission chaired by Philippa Russell, who is a well known campaigner for disabled people's rights but who also has a son with learning disabilities herself, and its job will be to look at the long term challenges that carers will face in our society over the next 20 or 30 years.

  Q221  Chairman: One last question from me. We talked earlier on about the Mersey pilot and so on. I was just wondering when you were going to evaluate them and disseminate the good practice that is emerging.

  Mrs McGuire: Individualised budgets?

  Mr Lewis: Is this the human rights stuff?

  Q222  Chairman: Yes, the IHR partnership thing.

  Mr Lewis: I cannot tell you today. We will write to you and give you the information.

  Q223  Chairman: Thank you very much. I think it has been a very interesting session. We are probably on the same wavelength. The real question is obviously implementation happening on the ground. For those who like to know, that is the last of our evidence sessions on this inquiry. We will be producing our report in due course and we anticipate publishing it in Easy Read as well.

  Mr Lewis: Excellent.

  Mrs McGuire: If the Office for Disability Issues can give you any support in doing that, Chairman, we would be delighted to do it.

  Chairman: Thank you very much.