The Conservative Party today launched a campaign against
government plans to use disability benefits for pensioners to fund
increases in adult social care funding.
The party has already voiced its opposition to
the plan and today said it would campaign against the
proposals, included in the
government's green paper on adult care,
published in July.
It is urging people to sign a petition against
the plans and write to their MPs.
The government's plan to fund at least a quarter to a third of
the personal care costs of all eligible care users would require
money being transferred to the adult care budget from disability
benefits.
Charities' anger
The plan sparked anger from a wide range of disability charities
and older people's groups who said disability living allowance and
attendance allowance provided valuable income for disabled
working-age adults and pensioners respectively.
Last month, health secretary
Andy Burnham ruled out using the DLA budget for
people aged under 65, but maintained that it was still
considering using money currently spent on AA.
DLA for people aged over 65 - paid to those who were claiming
the benefit before their 65th birthday - may also be transferred
into the social care budget.
No one would lose out
Burnham vowed that no one claiming AA or DLA at the time of the
changes would lose out from transferring the money into the social
care budget.
However, the Tories claimed the proposals risked slashing
pensioners' incomes by around a quarter and reducing their
independence. The party said 2.4m people over 65 received
disability benefits - two-thirds of this group received an average
of £60 a week from AA and the other third received an average of
£75 a week from DLA.
Shadow work and pensions secretary Theresa May said: “The
government plan will take away that choice and force vulnerable
pensioners to take the services that are given to them.”
The government will confirm whether it will go ahead with the
plan in a white paper, due early in 2010, but legislation to bring
about the change would only be brought in after the next election,
which the Tories are widely tipped to win.
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