PARLIAMENTARY WRITTEN QUESTION
Disability: Children (18 August 2021)

The Government’s Covid-19 support package during the pandemic, including the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme and the Self-Employment Income Support Scheme, sits alongside a substantial set of existing welfare support for families with disabled children. The Government will spend over £55 billion in 2021-22 on benefits to support disabled people and people with health conditions.

Disability Living Allowance (DLA) remains our primary means of supporting families with disabled children to help with the extra cost of long-term ill-health or disability. DLA is tax-free, non-contributory and non-means tested. It is available to those under the age of 16 who, due to a disability or health condition, have mobility issues and/or have needs which are substantially in excess of a child the same age without the disability or health condition. DLA is a contribution towards the extra costs associated with being disabled.

DLA can passport families to a range of additional support such as: child disability premiums paid within income related benefits, Carer’s Allowance, the Motability vehicle scheme, and the Blue Badge scheme. DLA also exempts the eligible household from the Benefit Cap.

The Government has acted swiftly to provide support during the pandemic, including for parents on lower incomes with disabled children through its package of welfare measures worth £7.4 billion in 2020-21 and £4.3 billion in 2021-22. These changes include relinking Local Housing Allowance rates to the 30th percentile in March 2020 at a cost of almost £1 billion – over 1.5 million households gained just over £600 per year on average in additional support, and this is being maintained at the same cash level this financial year to ensure that claimants continue to benefit from this increase.