Welfare Reform Bill

Indeed, and there is often an impact on the wider family, not just the immediate family. We believe that the Government are misguided in their decision to lengthen the time disabled people must wait before they are given support. The Government are also wrong to remove automatic entitlement for certain severely disabled people who currently have the automatic right to receive the higher rate of DLA. At the moment, the severely mentally impaired—that is the language that is used—double amputees and those who are deaf-blind, undergoing haemodialysis or are severely visually impaired are automatically able to receive higher rates of DLA. Under the Bill, however, only those with a terminal illness will automatically receive PIP. Obviously I welcome the Government's commitment to protect the terminally ill, but we believe that this obligation does not go far enough. Amendment 43 would ensure that those with a severely disabling condition, who are currently eligible for automatic entitlement, would retain that right following the introduction of PIPs. It is important that we keep in mind the group of people whom we are talking about in the amendment. Is the Minister planning to inform the House today that an individual who is severely mentally impaired or a double amputee might not now be eligible for the higher rate of PIP? That would be quite an announcement. What reason is there to force this group of severely disabled people to undergo an assessment process of which we can all safely predict the outcome? We now know that the Government plan to spend £675 million on establishing PIP, on the bureaucracy of PIP and on the reassessment of 1.8 million working-age recipients of disability living allowance.