This morning, a few hours ahead of the second reading of the Welfare Reform Bill, there was a debate in Parliament on the reform of DLA, particularly the mobility component. The debate was requested by Hywel Williams MP. It was the result of some hard work by my friends at the Broken Of Britain campaign organisation. A small group of MPs, including Maria Miller, the Minister for Disabled People, attended.
I was listening to the debate, but I didn’t feel like much was said. MPs who spoke were mostly bringing up individual cases of DLA claimants from their constituencies. They were also asking for areas of the proposed reforms to be clarified.
Maria Miller said she thinks DLA needs to be reformed because there is currently no way of checking whether people still need DLA. However, there are many incurable severe disabilities - many cases in which assessment will not change anything, or achieve anything except causing a great deal of stress to severely disabled people and their families.
From what I’ve heard about the Personal Independence Payment, the replacement of DLA which the Welfare Reform Bill will confirm, every disabled person who claims this will be assessed every year to ensure they still need the benefit. The current system of automatic lifelong awards of DLA will be removed for PIP. This was one of Hywel Williams MP’s main concerns, and as a person who currently has an automatic lifelong award of DLA, this is what worries me most about the reforms. I think this is one of the main things the Government needs to clarify about the proposed reforms. Will the most severely disabled people, the ones whose disabilities will never significantly improve as long as they live, need to be assessed every year? Will they need to prove every year that they are still disabled? And if they will, surely arranging their assessment will cost money that the Government won’t have, money that will surely be wasted? And most importantly, how is that fair?
If you missed the debate and would like to hear it, it’s available here.
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