Blackpool disabled 'marooned' by benefit plans

Many disabled people in Blackpool could be left "marooned" in care homes if plans to change the Disability Living Allowance go ahead, an MP claims. The £49.85 a week mobility part of the allowance for working-age people in care, which goes towards trips out, will be cut in the Welfare Reform Bill.

Labour MP Blackpool South Gordon Marsden raised the issue at Prime Minister's Questions earlier. David Cameron said the changes would stop people being "double counted".

Mr Marsden said: "Blackpool has above average numbers of residential homes for disabled people, including hundreds of my constituents." He said the plans "potentially maroons" those constituents in the care homes, as they were not ill.Mr Marsden said the disabled people should not be compared to patients in hospitals.

But Mr Cameron replied: "I would urge him to look carefully at the bill and look at our plans. "What he will see is that in the reform of the DLA, as we change that benefit and improve that benefit, we are putting the question of mobility into that reform. What we will do is avoid the double counting that has happened in the past."