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PARLIAMENTARY WRITTEN QUESTION
(10 December 2024)

Question Asked

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what estimate her Department has made of the additional costs to families for raising a disabled child.

Asked by:
Ben Coleman (Labour)

Answer

The DWP pays close attention to the evidence base on the extra costs faced by disabled children, including external academic research but does not endorse a particular external study.

For example, Scope’s Disability Price Tag (2023) uses a sensitive economic modelling methodology called the standard of living approach. They state that a family with a disabled child would have to pay £581 a month to have the same standard of living as a family with a non-disabled child. For 1 in 5 families, these costs can exceed £1000 per month. The existing evidence base that uses similar methodologies produce a wide range of estimates of this cost, ranging from £600 to £1,500 per month, reflecting a high degree of uncertainty around the true additional costs faced by families raising a disabled child.


Answered by:
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1 January 1970            

        

            
                            
                            
                        

                    


                                    

                    

                        

                    

                

            
                    

                                    

                

                    
Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0.