Disability Benefits

Lord Low of Dalston Excerpts

Monday 12th December 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Freud]

Well, my Lords, clearly we are very concerned by any misrepresentation in the tabloid press, which likes to simplify matters a great deal. We have a real issue in making sure that we have a very clear, coherent and consistent categorisation of who should receive these benefits, because one of the main policy thrusts of this Government is to make sure that the people who really need the money are the ones who get it.

[Lord Low of Dalston]

My Lords, is the Minister aware that the Benefit Integrity Project, introduced by the previous Government to weed out the misuse of disability benefits, found more people on DLA whose needs had risen than fallen, contributing to a rise in expenditure on benefits? Does he expect the introduction of personal independence payments to lead to a similar increase in expenditure, as well as a rise in the cost of administration?

[Lord Freud]

My Lords, there has been relatively little research on DLA and how accurately it is targeted. The last comprehensive survey was in 2005, and it was found that more than 11 per cent of cases were no longer applicable. That does not mean that fraud was involved; it just means that matters had moved on so that it was no longer applicable. We also found a reasonable proportion—much less—of people who should have had higher payments. It is a subjective, inconsistent benefit, which relies too much on self-assessment. We need to get a grip of it.