Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, whether he plans to review Disability Living Allowance criteria for children with severe dietary conditions.

The department has no plans to review the criteria for children with severe dietary conditions.

Disability Living Allowance (DLA) is available to children under the age of 16 who, due to a disability or health condition, have mobility issues and/or have care needs which are substantially in excess of a child the same age without the disability or health condition.

Entitlement to DLA depends on the extent to which a child needs help with personal care, needs supervision or has difficulties with walking. It is the effects of the condition and the needs arising from those effects that are important, rather than the child’s particular diagnosis.