In UK, disabled Labour MP leads protest of government's plan to scrap benefits for needy pensioners

From The Daily Mail in the UK:

A disabled Labour MP is leading a backbench rebellion against Ministers' plans to scrap benefits for needy pensioners.

Anne Begg (pictured) is fighting to save the attendance allowance, a payment used by 1.6million over-65s to buy themselves better social care.

She is joined by other senior Labour backbenchers, such as the chairman of the influential all-party Commons disability group, who fear the benefit could be axed as part of a shake-up of social care.

The revolt has been compared to the explosion of backbench anger over the scrapping of the 10p tax rate last year.

Attendance allowance is not means tested, meaning it is available to anyone who may need extra help with transport, special diets, handrails or other support.
Ministers say both AA and another benefit - the disability living allowance, also for over 65s - may need to be merged into general social care funding under a new National Care Service.

This will help pay for an insurance scheme designed to prevent people having to sell their home to move into residential care.

They have said the two allowances will be replaced by 'equivalent' benefits, but have given no details or any guarantee the replacements will not be means tested.
The two benefits are claimed by some 2.4million individuals to help them lead independent lives.

Miss Begg, Labour MP for Aberdeen South is confined to a wheelchair after being struck down with Gaucher's disease, a degenerative condition.

The 53-year-old member of the all-party Commons group on disability said she had written to ministers urging them to save the attendance allowance after the proposals to merge it into council social care funding were announced in a green paper in July.

'I know there have been a lot of responses from the green paper saying that attendance allowance is valued and people like to have the money in hand,' she said.
She was joined by Roger Berry, chairman of the Commons disability group, said: 'It is important to retain the two national disability benefits because of the very important reason that it gives the person voluntary control over their money.

'We have got to find more money for social care but that shouldn't take existing national benefits away which are of tremendous importance. Just as in the NHS we don't means test, I don't think in the National Care Service we should means test either.'

Jeremy Corbyn, a serial Labour rebel, has also signed a Commons motion in favour of keeping the AA.

And Lord Lipsey, a Labour peer, said the potential change in policy was like 'an admiral firing an Exocet into his own warship'.

He added: 'I'm not looking forward to the next general election but, if the result goes as I expect, one of the consolations will be that one of the most irresponsible acts to be put forward by a Prime Minister in recent history will be swept away with his government.'

Tory health spokesman Andrew Lansley said he would keep the two allowances. He added: 'As ever with Gordon Brown you have to look at the small print. In order to set up a new National Care Service he is planning to take away vital benefits from the elderly and disabled.

'It will mean that many pensioners will lose around £60 a week, which could be as much as a quarter of their income.

'We don't know what the Government's plan for a National Care Service would really involve, but it must not be funded by snatching benefits back from 2.4million vulnerable-pensioners.'

Some 1.6million-pensioners claim attendance allowance, a weekly payment of £47.10 or £70.35, depending on their disability, to spend on whatever personal care they believe they need: from transport and special diets to handrails.
Another 800,000 over-65s are on disability living allowance, which helps those whose disabilities kicked in before they reached 65.

Andrew Harropp of Age Concern, welcomed the Tory pledge to keep the benefits. 'Attendance allowance is especially important as it provides a flexible, non-means-tested entitlement which promotes independence,' he said.