Personal Independence Payment

Baroness Gardner of Parkes Excerpts

Wednesday 10th June 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Freud]

I think the judge very much took on board the fact that the Secretary of State realised that something that was simply unacceptable was going on and that we took very large measures to deal with it. Those measures included ramping up the numbers—we ramped up the number of health officials by a factor of four—and we had many more places to do the assessments, and so on. That is what has got the situation under control.

[Baroness Gardner of Parkes (Con)]

My Lords, is the Minister aware that a great deal of time is taken to reassess the cases of people who have incurable and irreversible conditions? Would it not be of great benefit to the department for those people not to be reviewed so often?

[Lord Freud]

My noble friend makes a fair point. Indeed, one of the ways in which we have speeded up the process since last June is by making more paper assessments, and it is precisely that group of people for whom we are able to do that.