Oral Answers to Questions

Wayne David Excerpts

Monday 28th March 2011 Commons Chamber

[Maria Miller]

I thank my hon. Friend for his question and share his concern about the lack of understanding that people sometimes have about what we are trying to do. I can reassure him that the Government’s reforms are all about putting integrity back into the support available for disabled people, moving away from a discredited system of DLA in which, in terms of the higher rate for the DLA mobility component, more money goes to people who are drug and alcohol addicts than to people who are blind.

[Mr Wayne David (Caerphilly) (Lab)]

What can the Minister say to my constituent, Jordan Owen, who is deaf and blind, currently attending school and in receipt of the mobility component of DLA, but who may well lose it when he leaves school and moves into residential care?

[Maria Miller]

The hon. Gentleman will of course have heard the earlier exchanges in which I said that the Government are not removing the mobility component of DLA from care home residents from 2012. We will ensure that the needs of individuals in care homes are assessed in the same way as those of everyone else in receipt of DLA as part of the PIP reforms.