SIR – Following the article ‘5,500 could lose disabled benefits’ (T&A, May 4) and my letter of April 27, I can again confirm that the Department for Work and Pensions have refused to support a Disability Living Allowance take-up campaign in Bradford, in spite of the Council’s desire to mount one.
Without the co-operation of the DWP and the use of their resources to process new claims, the take-up campaign cannot take place. It’s estimated that nationally up to 60 per cent of disabled people don’t claim the DLA to which they are entitled.
You can imagine the impact on the Government’s spending plans, if the take-up of DLA substantially increased; hence the Government’s attempt to stigmatise claimants, to set a target of cutting 20 per cent of the DLA budget (as the entitlement to benefit is prescribed by statute, it’s unclear how they can do this legally) and to introduce new criteria for entitlement to DLA as of 2013.
Bruce Barnes, Wilmer Road, Heaton, Bradford
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