Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:

To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, what consultation took place with patient representative groups and charities representing older people on the changes to attendance allowance proposed in the provisional local government finance settlement 2016-17.

In December, the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government announced that the Government will be consulting on giving councils in England “more responsibility to support older people with care needs – including people who, under the current system, would be supported through Attendance Allowance”. We want to explore if there is a better way to provide support for older people with care needs through local integration and we intend to launch a consultation on this in due course. Any change would not affect those already receiving Attendance Allowance. The consultation will be an open process that will give everybody a voice in determining the nature of any reform and will inform the decision about whether and how to proceed with any reform.