I disagree with that. Disability is expensive. All decent societies provide (usually far higher) support to the disabled and the disability benefits for all age cohorts in the UK meet a fraction of the actual cost to them of being disabled on average (less than half). The whole purpose of such benefits is to try to move things slightly towards equalising things between the disabled and non-disabled to enable them to participate in society by working, volunteering or even to be able to leave the house regularly. Robust studies show that reducing/ means-testing this would cost far more for two reasons: 1) those who have no need of the money financially generally don’t claim it anyway because it is a humiliating and invasive process, so means-testing would cost far more in administrative costs than not doing so; and 2) if you discourage disabled people from accessing this funding they need to participate in society you create various other downline costs (some of which are applicable primarily to pensioners or those of working age and some to both) which are higher (e.g. higher health costs, higher justice costs, higher state-funded housing costs, a reduction in overall tax revenue which exceeds the financial support, higher social care costs, etc).
In short, aside from the moral issue, economically cutting disability benefits for any age cohort is a false economy, and means-testing them even more so as that results in the highest reduction in tax revenue and smallest saving on benefits paid for the highest additional administration cost.
In effect we’d be transferring money from disabled people to tens of thousands of new civil servants to manage the process, while increasing the pressure and costs on other services and lowering tax revenue overall at the same time (the latter in the case of those of working age and the reduction in economic participation that would result from cuts in PIP or DLA for children, and the former two would be effects of cuts to financial support for all age groups of disabled including pensioners claiming attendance allowance). Not a great plan. The very definition of a false economy in fact if we look at it rationally rather than through various people’s ideologies (hence all Governments of developed countries of any political persuasion providing such financial support for the disabled and usually more generous than that on the UK: it makes economic sense, they don’t do it from some sense of altuism). It a demonstration of the siloed thinking in our UK Governments that nobody does a detailed overall impact assessment of the long-term costs on other departments and in future years before suggesting such short-term savings in one particular area when there is data from all over the world that this would increase, not decrease, the pressure on the public finances.
A far more sensible plan would be to means-test the state pension. As the highest welfare expense the administrative cost of means-testing would be a pittance in comparison to the money saved by stopping the unnecessary handouts to those who can support themselves perfectly comfortably without it. And unlike attendance allowance people seem to feel no shame in claiming this welfare when they don’t require it, so almost 100% do claim it even when they have no need of it. The state pension is 50% of the welfare expense on its own. Many tens of billions per year could be saved by means-testing it without leaving a single pensioner household with an income below the average UK household income after tax. It is the one and only area of welfare which includes enormous wasteful spending that is completely unaffordable, and if the richer pensioners who can support themselves perfectly well without it continue to claim it anyway en masse then it is simply a matter of time before this step will be taken, no matter how much they kick and scream about it (as they certainly will, as we can see from the level of entitlement on this thread and endless claims that they have “paid for” these handouts when it is an established fact that as a cohort they have done nothing close to doing so).