Disability Living Allowance

David Hamilton Excerpts

Wednesday 23rd March 2011 Westminster Hall

[John Robertson (Glasgow North West) (Lab)]

I will give colleagues leaving the previous debate an opportunity to sneak out—I am sorry that they cannot stay.

I am delighted to have secured this debate and I look forward to hearing the Minister’s reply and her comments on the wider issues that I am about to raise. There is probably no better place to begin debating disability living allowance than with the mobility component for blind people. An amendment that I tabled to the Welfare Reform Act 2009 and that will come into force in April will enable blind people to claim the higher mobility rate component of DLA. However, if the Government go ahead with the proposals in the consultation on a new assessment for DLA to remove the amendment that I successfully tabled to the 2009 Act, about 20,000 blind people across the UK could lose out. That means that 20,000 blind people in the UK, including 2,000 blind people in Scotland and 300 in my own city of Glasgow alone, could lose access to the higher rate mobility component DLA. That means they would lose at least £1,500 a year. That is a considerable sum for anyone, but it is a vital lifeline for blind people, who generally come from poor backgrounds.

The public consultation by the Department for Work and Pensions on DLA reform, which was published in December last year, raised concerns about the issue. The specific threat to the DLA mobility component appears in point 6 on page 4 of the document, which says:

“Currently individuals on DLA with certain health conditions or impairments are automatically entitled to specific rates of the benefit without a full assessment. We propose that for Personal Independence Payment there are no automatic entitlements, other than the special rules for people who are terminally ill. Instead, each case will be looked at individually, considering the impact of the impairment or health condition, rather than basing the decision on the health condition or impairment itself.”

[Mr David Hamilton (Midlothian) (Lab)]

Can my hon. Friend think of a way in which a blind person’s condition can improve? Why is there a need for a review?

[John Robertson]

My hon. Friend makes a good point and I will use a couple of cases as examples as I go through my speech.

On page 37 of the DWP consultation document, there is a list of automatic entitlements that the Government propose to remove, including one for blind people—the “severely visually impaired”. That entitlement was brought in as result of my amendment to the 2009 Act. The DWP consultation posed many more questions than it answered. We learned that the assessment for the new personal independence payment, which I will call “PIP”, will

“prioritise support on those individuals who face the greatest day-to-day challenges and who are therefore likely to experience higher costs.”

However, that wording was sufficiently vague that it could be overshadowed and interpreted in the light of other developments. Rules on eligibility would be restricted in such a way as to question the ongoing entitlement of disabled people in receipt of the lowest rates of the care and mobility components. PIP would consist of a mobility and daily living component, but unlike the existing care component, the new daily living component would comprise two rates, not three. An individual’s adaptation to their impairment would be taken into account in determining entitlement to PIP, presumably as a cost-cutting exercise.

I will not deal now with the plans to remove DLA mobility from individuals in residential care, as those plans were the subject of another Westminster Hall debate that was secured by the hon. Member for Arfon (Hywel Williams). I will simply add that it is reassuring that the Government will review mobility provisions for people living in care settings, but I still note the intention to remove DLA mobility for people in residential care in 2013, albeit one year later than originally proposed.

One of my most serious concerns relates to the Government’s plans to end automatic entitlement to DLA for people who clearly ought to have it, including the higher mobility component for people who have severe mental health problems, who are deafblind or are severely visually impaired. Individuals with those disabilities, along with people who are double amputees, automatically qualify for the higher rate, because they meet the strict criteria on the severity of their impairment.

That automatic entitlement is a clear and administratively efficient way of identifying disabled people with the highest level of mobility needs. In future, each case will be looked at individually, except the cases of people who are living with a terminal illness. Organisations for disabled people tell me that they do not believe that that is a sensible approach, as it will increase the costs of assessment while leading to the same outcome as the original system, and people with the most severe impairments will still receive the higher rate of benefit.

As I have mentioned, in three weeks’ time, more than 20,000 people in the UK with severe sight loss will be entitled, for the first time, to the higher rate mobility component of DLA and they will receive the extra £30 a week that they need in their pockets to maintain a decent quality of life. I tabled my amendment to the 2009 Act in the first place because of my strongly held belief that there is no good reason for discriminating between someone who faces physical barriers to mobility and someone who is unable to move around safely and independently as a result of blindness.

I want to tell the Minister about one of my constituents, as his case was the one that spurred me on to table the amendment to the 2009 Act in the first place. Alan McDonald has been blind from birth, has orientation problems and faces huge hurdles in getting around. He is unable to use public transport because of his difficulties in getting on and off buses and trains. Either he has to spend his other benefits on taxis, although they are meant to provide other support, or he is forced to rely on his sister to give him a lift to wherever he needs to go; otherwise, he has to stay at home.

Alan’s blindness is not the only barrier to his mobility. For example, when I tabled the amendment to the 2009 Act he was awaiting a second kidney transplant and was due to undergo surgery for hardening of the arteries. Despite all those difficulties, however, he was told on several occasions that he simply did not qualify for the higher-rate mobility component of DLA, because he was physically able to walk. Yes, he could walk—he could walk into wheelie bins, or into a set of traffic lights, or even into the middle of the road where he would be knocked down; but he could walk, so he did not get the money.

The barriers that Alan faces are just as great as those faced by someone who cannot walk, and the current situation is nonsensical. I believe that the Minister has to consider such things. It is unbelievable that somebody with such disabilities might not receive the higher rate of disability allowance in two years’ time, having finally received it after all these years.

Blind people such as Alan are justifiably angry about the discriminatory and unfair treatment that they receive, but they will feel even angrier and let down when the DLA mobility component, which comes into being in April, is taken away from them in just two years’ time. That will put them back to square one.

Many charities have contacted me because they are alarmed about the Government’s proposals. For example, the Guide Dogs for the Blind Association is concerned about the proposal that PIP should replace DLA. In particular, the association is concerned about the proposal in the DWP report on DLA reform proposals to

“take greater account of aids and adaptations”.

Taking into account the use of aids and adaptations when assessing eligibility could inadvertently penalise an individual who uses such equipment to try to reduce some of the difficulties that they face as a disabled person.