My right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Yvette Cooper) has made the following Written Ministerial Statement.

In 2005, the Government made public their commitment to work towards equality for disabled people by 2025. Since then we have come a long way but, as many disabled people know, we still have further to go.

To help achieve this ambition, on 11 June 2009 we launched a national consultation on the right to control by publishing the consultation paper, Making Choice and Control a Reality for Disabled People: Consultation on the Right to Control. We have also legislated for a right to control for disabled people in the Welfare Reform Act 2009, which recognises that disabled people are the experts in their own lives. We have worked closely with disabled people and their organisations to develop this right, including with our advisory group, chaired by Baroness Jane Campbell, and will test it in our Trailblazers, which will start in late 2010.

The consultation concluded on 30 September 2009 and 176 responses were submitted from individual disabled people, user-led organisations, service providers and local authorities, among others. These responses have helped us understand what areas we need to focus on and develop in order to offer a right that will be truly transformative for disabled people. Today, with the publication of the Government’s response, Making Choice and Control a Reality for Disabled People: Government Response to the Consultation on the Right to Control, we can take another step towards delivering the right to control and improve the life chances of disabled people by giving them more choice and control over how public money is spent to meet their individual care and support needs.

The government response to the right to control consultation can be viewed and downloaded from the Office for Disability Issues website at www.odi.gov.uk/right-to-control. Copies of the document will be placed in the House Library.