Benefit change mobility risk

AROUND 16,000 disabled people could lose their cars and scooters when benefit changes take effect, campaigners have said.

About 80,000 people will lose their mobility allowance when disability living allowance (DLA) is replaced by personal independence payments (PIP) next month, campaigners told Holyrood’s Welfare Reform Committee yesterday.

Some 46,200 people get cars and scooters under DLA but onethird stand to lose them under PIP, Inclusion Scotland chief executive officer Bill Scott said.

UK Welfare Reform Minister Lord Freud’s claim that cutting the walking distance at which people are deemed mobile from 50 metres to 20m would not bring a cut in recipients was questioned.

People could disqualify themselves if they make it to the benefits assessment centre, convener Michael McMahon suggested. He said the changes may leave people stuck in their houses all their lives.

But Conservative MSP Alex Johnstone accused an SNP MSP of spouting conspiracy theories and took issue with a campaigner referring to the new housing benefit under-occupancy penalty as a “bedroom tax”.

Mr Scott said: “Around 80,000 will lose entitlement to the DLA when the new enhanced PIP is brought in.

“For those on the higher rate, it’s not just the substantial loss of income that’s the worry, it’s the means of accessing wider society that will be put to question, because if they lose the higher rate they will also lose automatic entitlement to the blue badge.”