Additional statement on proposed changes to Disability Living Allowance assessments - in response to the emergency budget

Updated statement on the Emergency Budget by Richard Hawkes, Chief Executive of disability charity Scope:

“Since the Budget announcement, we have been inundated by disabled people who are greatly distressed that eligibility for Disability Living Allowance (DLA) will be determined by a medical assessment from 2013.

“We’ve already seen the consequences of medical assessments introduced for the Employment Support Allowance (ESA) where the underlying aim to achieve targets and cut costs left many disabled people worse off.

“We do not think that introducing a medical test for DLA is at all ‘fair’. It demonstrates a complete failure to recognise how DLA works and how it provides vital support in disabled people’s daily lives.

“Disabled people cannot afford to continually draw the short straw and have the support, which they have already had to fight so hard for, used as an economic escape route in a bid to cut costs.”

ENDS