To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions if he will estimate the cost of extending entitlement to the higher rate for Disability Living Allowance for mobility to all people of a qualifying age who are registered blind. (75336)

The estimated cost of extending automatic entitlement to the higher rate mobility component of disability living allowance in this way would be about £61 million a year at current benefit rates¹.

¹ The estimate is based on the latest (31 March 2003) figures for the numbers of registered blind people in England, Scotland and Wales and on 100 per cent. data for the numbers of disability living allowance recipients as at November 2005 from the Work and Pensions Longitudinal Study.