To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security what further measures the Government are planning to introduce to help those disabled people whose care and mobility needs are less severe.

I refer my hon. Friend to my reply to my hon. Friend the Member for Rugby and Kenilworth (Mr. Pawsey) on 5 March at columns 525–26·

To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security if he will make a statement on the measures introduced in April to assist sick and disabled people; and if he will make a statement.

Improvements made to social security benefits for long-term sick and disabled people in April were as follows:

(i) an increase in the income support and housing benefit disability premium of £1 for single people and £1·60 for couples above the normal uprating;

(ii) an increase in the income support and housing benefit disabled child's premium of £8·55 above the normal uprating to bring it into line with the adult disability premium;

(iii) an increase in the earnings limit for invalid care allowance from £12 to £20;

(iv) an increase of £6·50 in the therapeutic earnings limit for invalidity benefit and severe disablement allowance·

(v) the extension of attendance allowance to disabled babies under two. Carers of disabled babies will automatically be eligible to claim invalid care allowance·

(vi) the extension of mobility allowance to people who are deaf and blind

These measures form the first stage of our plan to provide a better balanced structure of benefits for disabled people as set out in "The Way Ahead" (Cm. 917). Taken together these proposals will provide extra help for some 850,000 people.

To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security what steps he is taking to improve the structure of benefits for the most severely disabled people.

The existing benefits structure already recognises that disabled people have extra needs. The OPCS survey findings showed that attendance allowance and mobility allowance are well targeted on the most common of the more costly disabilities. The new disability allowance will build on that framework by offering a relatively simple and readily understood benefit to both severely and moderately disabled people. The closer alignment of invalidity benefit and severe disablement allowance with the proposed age-related addition will substantially increase the benefit income of large numbers of very severely disabled people by up to £10 a week at current rates.