Disability benefit payments: Where we are now

Editor's note - 5th March 2012 - The Welfare Reform Bill has now cleared the Lords on its way to the statute book. There's an update to this article here.

18th January 2012 - The coalition Government's Welfare Reform Bill is more than half way along its passage through Parliament. The Government hopes it will become law by May but already it's had to make concessions.

The aim of the Bill is to overhaul the benefits system and make savings. Lord Patel, a crossbencher and former president of the Royal College of Obstetricians, has called parts of the Bill an immoral attack on the sick, the vulnerable and the poor.

DLA

The Lords debated changes to Disability Living Allowance (DLA).  

The Welfare Reform Bill seeks to end DLA, designed to help people with the extra costs resulting from their disability, and replace it with a Personal Independence Payment (PIP).

Peers voted by 229 to 213, to reject an amendment, tabled by Paralympian Baroness Grey-Thompson, which proposed holding pilots of the new benefit before implementing it fully.

However, even without piloting the new benefit some changes have already been made. The Government's already agreed to halve the time seriously ill or disabled people will have to wait to be eligible for PIPs from six to three months and it's agreed to keep the "mobility" part of Disability Living Allowance for those in residential care.

However, the mobility component of PIPs will still not be paid to people in hospital.

While remaining a non means-tested cash payment, ministers say PIPs will be easier to apply for and administer. Campaigners estimate half a million people with disabilities will lose out.

It's proposed all 3.2 million people receiving DLA at the moment, both those in work and out of work, will be reassessed.

ESA

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.

Peers voted against plans that would have meant some cancer patients receiving ESA would have been means tested for the benefit after 12 months. Instead they voted to make it two years to give them longer to recover. They also rejected the 12 month limit for ESA claimants who are judged capable of working at some stage in the future and they rejected moves to stop disabled young people who have never worked, due to illness or disability, from receiving ESA.
However the government says it will press ahead with changes to the welfare system, despite the defeats in the Lords.

Where next

The Bill will now have a third reading in the Lords before MPs in the Commons consider the changes peers have made. Legislation can then go back and forth between the two Houses of Parliament as they try to reach agreement.

Labour said the coalition had been defeated for trying to "cross the basic line of British decency" and urged ministers not to try to reinstate the measures in the Commons.

While occasionally a failure to agree a deal can mean a Bill fails, the Commons can take precedence and push laws through - even without the approval of the Lords - if certain conditions are met.

In general, the provisions of the Bill apply to Wales in the same way as they apply to England. Some of the provisions of the Bill will require the consent of the Scottish Parliament.