Disability Living Allowance

Disability Living Allowance is an “outdated benefit” for which “around 50 per cent of decisions are made on the basis of the claim form alone - without any additional corroborating medical evidence,” stated UK minister for disabled people Esther McVey on the BBC and elsewhere this morning (8 April 2013).

Channel 4 television's respected 'Dispatches' series will carry a programme on Disability Living Allowance at 8pm tonight (Monday 25 February). It is entitled, perhaps rather sweepingly and unhelpfully, 'Britain on Benefits'. Nonetheless, it will be important viewing.

The UK government’s Welfare Benefits Up-rating Bill will hit even seriously ill people and their families, specialists have pointed out. The controversial measure involves limiting increases in most working-age benefits to one per cent a year for three years from 2013-14 – a drop in real terms, since the cost of living is rising considerably faster.