§ 23. Mr. Nigel Evans (Ribble Valley)What representations he has received concerning disability living allowance reforms. [58390]
§ The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Social Security (Mr. Stephen Timms)A list of more than 1,000 organisations and individuals who responded to the welfare reform Green Paper is in the House of Commons Library, most of them touching on disability issues. As we promised in the Green Paper, we have established a disability benefits forum, which has a working group dealing specifically with reforms to the disability living allowance. The Select Committee on Social Security also published a valuable report on DLA on 20 May.
§ Mr. EvansCan the Minister give the House an estimate of how many people he believes are receiving disability living allowance who should not be entitled to it? How many of those who appeal when they lose DLA have that payment restored? May I ask him to ensure that appeals are held as quickly as possible once a claimant lodges an appeal?
§ Mr. TimmsPerhaps I can draw the hon. Gentleman's attention to the figures that I gave some moments ago. I said that, so far, 138,000 cases under BIP had been checked and, of those, 32,500 people were found initially not to be receiving the right benefit. That number fell to 29,300, after the reviews and appeals that have been completed so far.
The hon. Gentleman's question gives me the opportunity to make one important point. The level of fraud in disability living allowance is very low: the level of confirmed fraud is about 1.5 per cent. The level of incorrectness is greater than that. It is important to distinguish between those two things and to make it clear to the House that the level of fraud is very low.