Disabled People: Disability Living Allowance

Lord Low of Dalston Excerpts

Wednesday 11th May 2011 Lords Chamber

[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.

[Lord Low of Dalston]

My Lords, the Minister will be aware that on Monday the Government published draft assessment regulations for the new personal independence payment. It appears that assessments will seek to distinguish between those who have not adapted to their disability and those who have and who will be at risk of having their benefit reduced or losing it altogether. Does the Minister not agree that people may have adapted to their disability by reason of the very help that they have received from disability living allowance, which supports their independence and fuller inclusion in the community, and that reduction of benefit for those who have so adapted may, in fact, be self-defeating and undermine the integration into the community of the very people the benefit was designed to help?

[Lord Freud]

My Lords, this is clearly a quite nuanced issue, because there are people who are climbing Mount Kenya on prosthetic limbs who are, I suspect, less challenged in doing that than many of us would be. It does not make sense to go on treating them as disabled in any way, although they may need ongoing support to keep that particular disability support going. We need to get this right. We are consulting on it, and we are determined that we do not create a disincentive for people to use all the supports that they need.