Disabled People: Disability Living Allowance

Lord Boswell of Aynho Excerpts

Wednesday 11th May 2011 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Boswell of Aynho]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the loss of passported benefits to disabled people when the number of those entitled to receive disability living allowance is reduced by 20 per cent.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Work and Pensions (Lord Freud)]

My Lords, we are committed to ensuring that the budget for DLA is kept under control. Reducing expenditure in 2015-16 by 20 per cent means bringing working-age expenditure back to 2009-10 levels and makes it sustainable for the future. As we are still designing the assessment for the personal independence payment, it is not yet possible to comment on its impact on future passporting arrangements. We therefore cannot currently reflect that in our impact assessments, but I can, and do, commit to us doing so when we are able.

[Lord Boswell of Aynho]

My Lords, I thank my noble friend the Minister for his response and for his assurance. Will he bear in mind that, on our calculation, there are more than 40 passported benefits spanning a wide range of government departments? Will he do his utmost in the assessment process to ensure that there are no cliff edges or unintended consequences which could affect significant groups of rather vulnerable people?

[Lord Freud]

My Lords, this is a key matter. There are a large number of benefits attached to DLA. I suspect that at least six government departments are involved. No one knows exactly where all of them are because local authorities use them in different ways. We are going to make a very close assessment of this. Indeed, we suspect that some of the attached benefits will be looked at again to see how they can best be directed at the people who need that support.