Kate Green
Main Page: Kate Green (Labour - Stretford and Urmston)Department Debates - View all Kate Green's debates with the Scotland Office
(14 years, 4 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
The Deputy Prime Minister
My hon. Friend is right to say that as well as having to deal with a fiscal crisis—which has been handed over to us by the Labour party—we are faced also with a social crisis: social mobility has gone down; inequality has gone up; the gap between rich and poor has increased; and child poverty has increased by 100,000 since 2004 alone. That is why we have taken 800,000 people out of paying tax altogether. That is why we are going to deliver a pupil premium for children from poor backgrounds wherever they live in this country. That is why we have restored the triple guarantee to pensioners. That is why we have taken measures to make Britain fairer which were not taken by Opposition Members.
Kate Green (Stretford and Urmston) (Lab)
Q5. My constituent, Charlie Donegan, suffers from long-term mental health problems, septicaemia, pneumonia and methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, and is a wheelchair user as a result. He receives the mobility and care components of disability living allowance at the higher rate. Can the Deputy Prime Minister explain to my constituent and to thousands of other worried members of the public like him, who rely on DLA for some small improvement to the quality of their lives, why he is now to face a medical test for a benefit that is intended to meet his non-medical needs?
The Deputy Prime Minister
This is not about taking away universal benefits; this is about making sure that those who receive DLA, such as the hon. Lady’s constituent, do so because of real need. That is why it has been proposed by Members from all parties for many, many years that one way to proceed is to have a simple medical test. I meet constituents; I meet people who say that rather than running the gamut of the vast bureaucracy that has now attached itself to DLA, they themselves would prefer a simple medical test to know whether they continue to be entitled to receive that benefit, yes or no.