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I've followed up my blogpost about the origins of Disability Living Allowance, currently being replaced with Personal Independence Payment, with a look at the earlier development of 'extra costs' disability benefits in the UK. These benefits were introduced at a time of great economic crises in the 1970s and it's important to recognise that their introduction benefited the wider economy. In contrast, the replacement of DLA with PIP is only going to add to the spiraling down of demand, loss of jobs, loss of tax revenue - and significant disadvantages to disabled people and their families. http://jennymorrisnet.blogspot.co.uk/2013/02/pip-foolishness-personified.html Disabled people won an important concession from the government yesterday when the Department for Work and Pensions agreed to introduce the words 'safely, reliably, repeatedly and in a reasonable time period' into regulations governing how assessments of mobility abilities are to be carried out. http://www.dwp.gov.uk/newsroom/press-releases/2013/jan-2013/dwp016-13.shtml But DWP still estimate that 420,000 people are going to lose out and disabled people are continuing their campaign to change the eligibility criteria still further. ________________End of message________________ This Disability-Research Discussion list is managed by the Centre for Disability Studies at the University of Leeds (www.leeds.ac.uk/disability-studies). Enquiries about list administration should be sent to [log in to unmask] Archives and tools are located at: www.jiscmail.ac.uk/lists/disability-research.html You can VIEW, POST, JOIN and LEAVE the list by logging in to this web page.