Amendment to the Welfare Reform Bill
Concessions offered over disability benefit changes
Ministers are set to make concessions over controversial proposed changes to disability benefits.
The government is backing an amendment to the Welfare Reform Bill halving the time seriously ill or disabled people will have to wait to be eligible for Personal Independence Payments (PIPs).
This would reduce the qualifying period for the benefit from six to three months.
It comes after peers defeated the coalition over other welfare changes.
The government was defeated three times in the House of Lords last week over proposed changes to eligibility for employment support allowance (ESA), formerly known as incapacity benefit, although ministers have vowed to press on with the proposals.
Peers are currently debating the government’s welfare bill, one of its flagship pieces of legislation, which ministers want to become law by the end of parliamentary session in May.
Peers are due to discuss proposed changes to PIPs – which are replacing the longstanding disability living allowance (DLA) – on Tuesday.
Travel costs
Under current proposals, the qualifying time for the benefit would be extended from three months to six.
But it emerged on Monday that Welfare Reform Minister Lord Freud has added his name to an amendment tabled by other peers that would revert the waiting period back to three months.
In a further apparent climbdown, another amendment tabled by Lord Freud removes a clause that would have prevented disabled people living in care homes receiving a payment to help with their travel and transport costs.
However, the mobility component of PIPs will still not be paid to people in hospital.
All 3.2 million people receiving DLA at the moment, both those in work and out of work, are due to be reassessed.
Ministers have insisted the benefit, introduced in 1992 to help disabled people cope with the extra costs they face in their daily lives, is complicated and inconsistent and needs to be simplified.
While remaining a non means-tested cash payment, ministers say PIPs will be easier to apply for and administer.
The government says spending on DLA has risen by 30% in the past eight years and, even after the changes, projected spending in 2015-2016 would be equivalent to levels in 2009-2010.
But campaigners have warned that many vulnerable people would have less to spend on basic items like food, fuel and transport if the changes go through.
