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Disabled: Social Security Benefits

Volume 503: debated on Wednesday 6 January 2010

To ask the Secretary of State for Health if he will publish the results of each model (a) prepared and (b) commissioned by his Department on (i) removal of and (ii) changes to attendance allowance and disability living allowance. (308784)

The Department has commissioned modelling of funding options for care and support from the Personal Social Services Research Unit (PSSRU). This includes consideration of integration of some disability benefits with the care and support system. The methods used in the modelling were published in a technical report on the PSSRU’s website in July at:

www.pssru.ac.uk.

Interim results from the modelling are not being released at this time for a number of reasons. The interim results were not based upon the latest policy assumptions, reflecting, for example, what people have been telling us in the consultation, and the Prime Minister’s announcement on free personal care. We have concluded that to release the interim results could be unhelpful and misleading.

The PSSRU continue to model the funding options for care and support based on revised assumptions. We intend to publish more details of this work this year. In the meantime, the whole methodology of the interim report was published on the PSSRU’s website in July. The top-level costs and benefits are in the impact assessment published with the Green Paper and available on the Big Care Debate website.

To ask the Secretary of State for Health whether changes have been made to the financial assumptions underpinning the Government's financial modelling for a national care service consequent on the announcement of the policy that there will be no cash losers among existing disability benefit recipients. (309118)

As we said in the Green Paper, “Shaping the Future of Care Together”, if we reform disability benefits, anyone receiving an affected benefit at the time of the reform would continue to receive the equivalent level of support and protection.

Our working assumption in the financial modelling has therefore consistently been that nobody would experience a cash loss as a result of the reforms.