Urgent question on Severe Disability Premium
7 May 2019 (updated on 7 May 2019)
Shadow Work and Pensions Secretary, Margaret Greenwood, asked the Government to make a statement on the Severe Disability Premium (SDP).
Disability premiums are extra amounts of money added to an individual's:
- Income Support
- income-based Jobseeker's Allowance (JSA)
- income-related Employment and Support Allowance (ESA)
- housing benefit
Shadow Work and Pensions Secretary, Margaret Greenwood, asked the Government to make a statement on the situation for former SDP claimants who have now transferred to universal credit.
Responding on behalf of the Government, Minister Justin Tomlinson, told the House;
"When designing universal credit, a choice was made to not replicate every aspect of the disability provision in the legacy system. However, I want to make very clear that our intention was that no money from this area would be taken out of the system. Universal credit was therefore designed with all of the money from the old disability premium recycled to target support for the most severely disabled."
In response to the Minister, Shadow Work and Pensions Secretary Margaret Greenwood criticised the Government's treatment of those on SDP and urged the Government to ensure that payments to former SDP claimants who have transferred to universal credit "fully reflect the loss that they have suffered".
- Watch Parliament TV: Urgent question on Severe Disability Premium
- Read Commons Hansard: Urgent question on Severe Disability Premium
- Find out more about the Severe Disability Premium in the Commons Library briefing paper
Image: Roger Harris
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