Tories round on Brown for 'attack on the poor'
The plans could see an end to disability living allowance, the Tories say
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Thursday, 19, Nov 2009 12:00
By Ian Dunt
The prime minister's commitment to reforming disability allowance constitutes an attack on the poor as shocking as the 10p tax debacle, the Conservatives have claimed.
Labour pledged, in yesterday's Queen's Speech, that around 400,000 of the neediest would see care costs covered by the state.
But the Tories claimed it would be funded through cuts to attendance allowance and disability living allowance for the over-65s.
Warning of the "severe adverse consequences" of the move, Theresa May, shadow work and pensions secretary, said: "This is the last attack by Mr Brown on the poor."
"As with every Labour initiative, someone has to pay and, as with many of them, it is the least able who are to be forced to do so."
But No 10 furiously denied the reform, part of its social care package, would impact on those already receiving benefits.
"No existing benefit recipient will lose out on this," the prime minister's spokesman said this morning.
He claimed the £670 million needed for the plan would be found from the existing budget.
Health secretary Andy Burnham described the accusation as "gutter politics".
"It is gutter politics to raise concerns amongst the most vulnerable people in society that there benefits will be cut," he told the World at One
"Let me be clear it is possible that we could reform attendance allowance as part of a plan for a National Care Service. Let me be equally clear we have said that anyone in receipt of those benefits would get an equivalent level of [support]."