Disabled people pay price for cuts to mortgage relief | Society | The Guardian

Disabled people pay price for cuts to mortgage relief | Society | The Guardian

The government is facing pressure to reverse a highly sensitive spending cut that is preventing disabled people from buying a share in their own homes.

Frank Field, Labour's former welfare reform minister, has condemned the "clunking fist of bureaucracy" for a cut in mortgage interest payments that is stopping some disabled people from moving into modern purpose-built homes.

Field is lobbying Iain Duncan Smith, the work and pensions secretary, to relax the rule, which has left a paralysed constituent marooned in a small bungalow designed for a pensioner.

A new £200,000 purpose-built home, with a lift and a special bathroom attached to the bedroom, is standing empty in Birkenhead after the government halved the amount of interest paid to those on benefits eligible for mortgage relief.