Welfare Reform Bill

I have a more specific question about disability living allowance and I think this may be the right place to ask it. If someone living in a high-cost rental area on local housing allowance has a serious accident or is diagnosed with a serious long-term condition, perhaps next March, and is placed in the ESA work-related activity group, they might apply for disability living allowance. They might have had a stroke that was not bad enough to take them out of the jobs market for a very long term but that would require them to take a long period of recovery, and they might have been quite badly affected. This person will have to be assessed and then wait for a qualifying period of three months. If during those three months the person in the household falls foul of the benefit cap, will they be penalised immediately or will their application for DLA be taken into account, which of course will then exempt them from the cap? This is an important matter which we have not heard anything about. It might be part of the transitional arrangements that we hope we will hear about, but I would hate that person, with all their difficulties, to have to think about having to look for another place to live when they are trying to recover from quite a serious illness.