Peter Bone allows Work and Pensions Minister Maria Miller to bust Labour myths about disability benefits

By Jonathan Isaby

At Work and Pensions Questions yesterday, serial rebel Peter Bone helpfully asked the Government to explain its plans for the future of disability living allowance. The minister, Maria Miller, replied:

"Disability living allowance will be replaced by the personal independence payment (PIP), which is a new, more transparent and sustainable benefit underpinned by an objective assessment of the barriers disabled people face in living full and independent lives. From 2013-14, working-age individuals in receipt of DLA will be reassessed against the new eligibility criteria for PIP."

The supplementary exchange then went as follows:

Mr Bone: It is so nice to have a Minister give such a full answer. In my constituency, people are worried that DLA is going to go and not be replaced by anything. I wonder where such false information is coming from. Does she have any idea?

Maria Miller: I thank my hon. Friend for his question and share his concern about the lack of understanding that people sometimes have about what we are trying to do. I can reassure him that the Government's reforms are all about putting integrity back into the support available for disabled people, moving away from a discredited system of DLA in which, in terms of the higher rate for the DLA mobility component, more money goes to people who are drug and alcohol addicts than to people who are blind.