Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what recent assessment her Department has made of the potential merits of increasing the eligibility age of the Mobility Allowance.

Mobility Allowance was incorporated into Disability Living Allowance (DLA), as the lower and higher rates of the mobility component, from 1992 and subsequently the standard and enhanced rates of the mobility component of Personal Independence Payment (PIP) when PIP was introduced to replace working age DLA from 2013.

Prior to the introduction of changes to State Pension age (SPa), to equalise and increase pensionable age for men and women, the upper age limit for claiming DLA and PIP was the day before reaching age 65. DLA claimants who were age 65 or over on 8 April 2013, when PIP was introduced, can continue to receive the benefit after that age for as long as they satisfy the conditions of entitlement. DLA claimants who were under the age of 65 on 8 April 2013 will be invited to claim PIP regardless of whether they are over the age of 65 at the time they are invited and can gain access to either component, at either rate, regardless of their age.

The upper age limit for claiming PIP by new claimants for the first time was last reviewed prior to the most recent changes to SPa made by the Pensions Act 2014 and is the day before reaching SPa, as set out in the Pensions Act 1995. Once someone is entitled to PIP they can continue to be paid beyond SPa so long as the conditions of entitlement remain satisfied.