Dear [MP's name],
I am writing to you as a constituent, at [your address], about the Disability Living Allowance system for children, which I believe is no longer fit for purpose and is failing disabled children in our constituency and across the country.
Child DLA decisions are being made by staff with no medical training, using guidance substantially unchanged since 1991. The DLA Advisory Board, which the Decision Makers Guide still cites as being consulted on that guidance, was abolished in 2013. The same guidance directs decision makers to refer complex cases to "Medical Services", a function that has not existed since the relevant contract ended in 2015. Children with rare and complex conditions are being refused because the framework for assessing them has been quietly dismantled, and the department's own advisory board identified as far back as 2006 that children under five were disadvantaged by the assessment approach.
The case that started the Denied By Default campaign shows what this means in practice. Isaiah, now almost 3, has achondroplasia — the most common form of dwarfism and a recognised disability under the Equality Act 2010. He uses a walker to take steps, a back brace to support his spine and hearing aids; he is under eight specialist medical teams, has averaged at least one medical appointment a week since birth, and in December 2025 needed urgent neurosurgery for severe spinal compression. He was refused DLA twice, at 9 months and at 15 months, without a single one of his specialists being contacted — his family were told “all infants have high care needs”. In May 2026 a tribunal awarded him the highest rate of care, the judge describing the medical evidence as “overwhelming”. It was the same evidence the department had refused twice.
The consequences fall on families least able to fight back. Most benefit appeals that reach a tribunal hearing are decided in the claimant's favour (60% in the latest Ministry of Justice tribunal statistics), which shows the evidence is there but is not being properly considered at the decision-making stage. Families face months of mandatory reconsideration and appeal while caring for seriously unwell children, and many give up support they are entitled to.
[Optional: add 2-3 sentences about your own family's experience of applying for DLA here.]
Despite all of this, the Work and Pensions Committee has not conducted an inquiry into DLA since PIP was introduced in 2013.
I would be grateful if you would:
1. Write to the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions asking what medical guidance, clinical advice route and expert oversight currently exist for child DLA decision making;
2. Raise with the Work and Pensions Committee the case for an inquiry into child DLA; and
3. Share with me any response you receive.
More detail on the evidence behind these concerns is available from the Denied By Default campaign at www.deniedbydefault.org.
Thank you for your time. I would welcome your reply.
Yours sincerely,
[Your full name]
[If you’ve joined us: Anchor family, Denied By Default]
[Your address and postcode]