Disabled People: Disability Living Allowance

Baroness Campbell of Surbiton Excerpts

Monday 7th February 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Freud]

It gives me pleasure to say that that is the exact purpose of this assessment. We want to make sure that the money that we do have is well directed to supporting people to have independent lives. It would clearly be perverse if people were supported to live an independent life and that support was then removed when they still needed it. I cannot envisage that that situation would develop.

[Baroness Campbell of Surbiton]

My Lords, will the Minister tell us how the Government expect to achieve the projected savings of £1 billion by 2015 when the highly regarded disability charity Disability Alliance estimates that 823,000 disabled people will lose vital DLA support in order for the Government to meet that target?

[Lord Freud]

My Lords, as the noble Baroness pointed out, the target is to reduce the spending on DLA by 20 per cent by 2014-15. But that is against a projection of a benefit that is, frankly, out of control. The actual figure in that year will basically come down to the level that it was in 2009-10, which is just below the £12 billion mark.