DISABILITY LIVING ALLOWANCE - MOBILITY COMPONENT

That this House is aware that the disability living allowance mobility component helps meet the extra costs many disabled people face in their everyday lives; notes that for disabled people who live in residential care it provides support to pay for such items as a powered wheelchair, accessible taxis, or a mobility car; is alarmed that from March 2013 it is planned to be replaced by Personal Independence Payment which includes in itsremit the power to cease mobility components for disabled people having to live in this accommodation, the result being a saving of 160 million to the public purse, but at the cost of this action impacting massively on the daily lives of around 80,000 of society's most vulnerable people who will consequently find themselves unable to afford to leave their homes, thereby being denied the independence most able-bodied people take for granted; and calls on the Government to desist from such a journey which will not allow disabled people in residential care to live active independent lives.