Personal Independence Payments

Debbie Abrahams Excerpts
Monday 4th June 2018

(5 years, 9 months ago)

Commons Chamber
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Urgent Questions are proposed each morning by backbench MPs, and up to two may be selected each day by the Speaker. Chosen Urgent Questions are announced 30 minutes before Parliament sits each day.

Each Urgent Question requires a Government Minister to give a response on the debate topic.

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Debbie Abrahams Portrait Debbie Abrahams (Oldham East and Saddleworth) (Lab)
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(Urgent Question): To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions if she will make a statement on the withdrawal of her appeals in relation to personal independence payment claimants with chronic conditions, and what further action she will be taking.

Esther McVey Portrait The Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Ms Esther McVey)
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I am absolutely committed to ensuring that disabled people and people with health conditions get the right support they need. PIP is a modern, personalised benefit that assesses claimants on needs, not conditions. It continues to be a better benefit than its predecessor, disability living allowance, for claimants with chronic conditions. Under DLA, only 16% of claimants with diabetes received the top rate, whereas under PIP 29% receive the top rate.

I carefully considered these historical cases and decided no longer to continue with the appeals in order to provide certainty to the claimants. Since withdrawing the appeals, I have provided instructions to operational colleagues to put these claims in payment urgently. These claimants will receive any backdated moneys owed, and should receive their first payment within the coming days.

These cases were decided prior to the March 2017 amending regulations—the Social Security (Personal Independence Payment) (Amendment) Regulations 2017—in which the Government clarified our policy for managing therapy under PIP daily living activity 3. These regulations are not affected by our decision to withdraw these appeals.

Debbie Abrahams Portrait Debbie Abrahams
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Thank you for granting this urgent question, Mr Speaker.

The announcement during the recess that, for the second time this year, the Secretary of State has withdrawn appeals, this time on daily living activity 3 of the PIP assessment—the component on managing therapy or monitoring health conditions—raises serious questions. I would therefore be grateful to the Secretary of State if she told me now how many people she estimates have been incorrectly assessed on the PIP daily living activity 3 descriptor who have either been denied support or have had reduced support.

Will the Department be undertaking a review of past claims relating to this descriptor to identify other claimants who may have been underpaid or denied support? If so, when will the process start and be completed? I am grateful to the Secretary of State for her reassurance that it will take days. Will additional staff be recruited to undertake this process? What assessment has the Department made of the average award to which claimants will be entitled, and when will the payments be backdated to? Will there be an appeal process for PIP claimants who are not contacted by the Department who believe that they should receive back payments? What assessment has she made of the administrative and legal costs to her Department and the public purse?

Given the Secretary of State’s concession in these test cases, does she accept that the changes made in the March 2017 PIP regulations regarding activity 3 are illegal? Given also that there is a review of 1.6 million PIP cases to identify the estimated 220,000 people who have been underpaid with regard to the mobility activity component, will the Secretary of State tell the House how many of the 1.6 million PIP claims have been reviewed to date and when the exercise will be completed? How many of the estimated 220,000 people affected have received back payments to date?

With a record of 69% of PIP decisions being overturned on appeal, it is clear that the assessment process is not fit for purpose. The recent report by the Select Committee on Work and Pensions on the process said that the assessments caused unnecessary stress and anxiety for thousands of people who have been denied support unfairly, as well as wasting public money by sending many decisions back to the courts. When will the Secretary of State get a grip on PIP, and will she immediately stop the reassessment of disabled people with progressive conditions?

Esther McVey Portrait Ms McVey
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Today’s urgent question was specifically about the cases of AN and JM, on which I have given a decision. For the purposes of clarity, it was not to continue with the court case. Any other issues that the hon. Lady raised are separate, and the question of whether we move on and do other things is not for discussion today. There is a further case under way, and I am sure Mr Speaker would agree that it would be incorrect for me to discuss an ongoing legal case, so I cannot do so. However, for the claimants on whose claims this urgent question was granted, I have, for the sake of clarity, withdrawn the appeal.

We are talking separately about the mobility issue, on which I have given regular updates to the House. We have been working with stakeholders to create new guidance, and we have consulted claimants and stakeholders. We seem to be on schedule for the first payment to go out to them at the start of the summer.