Welfare Reform Bill

We support the amendment. I should declare an interest in that I receive disability living allowance. Disability living allowance has two components: mobility and care. There are three rates of each. A lone parent with a child under seven who qualifies for any rate of DLA should not have to participate in the work-related activity regime in order to receive benefits. Being the sole carer of a disabled child is likely to be a full-time activity and not one for which it is easy to find replacement childcare. Parents of those children are not exempted from the progression-to-work group, as the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, said, if their disabled child qualifies only for the lower rate care component of DLA. If the rate was the middle or higher rate, the parents would be exempted. Having different rules for those parents is problematic because renewal applications often result, as the noble Baroness said, in assessments being upgraded or downgraded and then overturned on appeal. Families with disabled children experience high levels of poverty, with research showing that take-up of DLA is low, often because of the onerous application process, as well as ignorance of entitlement. Poor decision-making leads to a high level of appeals, which are often successful. I feel particularly strongly about this because I had to go through the appeal process, so I know all about it. There is evidence to show that there is a growth in disputed decisions of DLA, with it constantly being downgraded or removed and then reinstated on appeal. I urge the Government to think again and to exempt the lone parent of a child under seven who receives any rate of a DLA care component from the conditionality regime. Those lone parents should not come under the work activity provisions.