Asked by: Jessica Toale (Labour - Bournemouth West)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what assessment she has made of the potential impact of the reforms to Personal Independence Payment outlined in the Pathways to Work Green Paper on people aged under 25 with cancer.
Answered by Stephen Timms - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
Entitlement to Disability Living Allowance for children (DLAc) under 16 and Personal Independence Payment (PIP) for young people from age 16 are assessed based on the additional care/daily living and mobility needs arising from a long-term disability or health condition, rather than a diagnosis of a condition or disability itself.
Applications under the special rules for end of life, where life expectancy is 12 months or less, are unaffected by the planned eligibility changes to PIP to introduce a new requirement to score a minimum of four points in one daily living activity. Claims are fast tracked, and the person is eligible for the higher-rate care/daily living component from the date of claim.
For your reassurance, there will be no immediate changes to PIP eligibility. Our intention is that changes will start to come into effect from November 2026, subject to parliamentary approval. After that date, no one will lose PIP without first being reassessed by a trained assessor or healthcare professional, who assesses individual needs and circumstance. Reassessments happen on average every 3 years. We are consulting on how best to support those who are affected by the new eligibility changes, including ensuring health and care needs are met.
We are also consulting on raising the age at which young people move from DLAc to PIP, to better align with other key milestones in the transition to adulthood and support available.
Asked by: Jessica Toale (Labour - Bournemouth West)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, whether she has made an assessment of the potential impact of the (a) qualifying period and (b) delays in processing applications for disability benefits on carers of children and young people with cancer who are unable to apply for (i) carers benefits and (ii) other associated support until the disability benefits have been awarded.
Answered by Stephen Timms - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
The information requested on the number of delayed applications is not collected and could only be obtained at disproportionate cost.
It is a long standing principle that Carer’s Allowance can only be awarded once a decision has been made to award the “trigger” disability benefit to the person being cared for, but the award of Carer’s Allowance can be backdated to the date that the disability benefit is payable from.
Asked by: Jessica Toale (Labour - Bournemouth West)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many and what proportion of (a) children under 16 and (b) young people between the ages of 16 and 25 are successful in their (i) PIP and (ii) DLA applications at (A) initial application and (B) appeal stage in (1) Bournemouth and (2) the rest of the UK.
Answered by Stephen Timms - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
Between October 2019 and September 2024, for claimants aged 16 to 25 inclusive, in England and Wales, there were 346,000 PIP clearances that were awarded at initial decision, which was 60% of initial PIP clearances for that age range. For the same clearances, 15,000 (3% of initial clearances) were awarded at the mandatory reconsideration stage (between the initial decision and appeal stage), 5,000 (1% of initial decisions) were lapsed, where the Department revises its decision in favour of the claimant before reaching tribunal, and 9,000 (2% of initial decisions) were overturned in favour of the claimant at appeal.
Between October 2019 and September 2024, for claimants aged 16 to 25 in Bournemouth, there were 1,090 PIP clearances that were awarded at initial decision, which was 57% of PIP clearances for that age range. For the same clearances, 50 (3% of initial clearances) were awarded at the mandatory reconsideration stage (between the initial decision and appeal stage), 20 (1% of initial clearances) were lapsed, where the Department revises its decision in favour of the claimants before reaching tribunal, and 30 (2% of initial clearances) were overturned in favour of the claimant at appeal.
Claimants aged under 16 cannot claim PIP.
For Disability Living Allowance (DLA), the information requested is not readily available for the specified geographical breakdowns. To provide this would incur a disproportionate cost. We have provided the information requested for England & Wales below:
(a) In FY24/25, 179,000 normal claims were awarded DLA for children. This is equivalent to a success rate of 84%.
(b) The latest Tribunal Statistics by Ministry of Justice indicates there were 1,390 decisions in favour of claimants that were cleared at hearing, equivalent to a success rate of 59%, between Q1-Q3 of FY2024/25.
Notes:
- Figures provided above are for PIP claims within DWP policy ownership and therefore exclude claimants in Scotland and Northern Ireland.
- PIP data includes normal rules and special rules for end of life claimants, and is for both new claims and DLA reassessment claims.
- PIP data has been rounded to the nearest 1,000 for England and Wales level data, and rounded to the nearest 10 for data relating specifically to Bournemouth.
- Percentages have been rounded to the nearest percent.
- Components may not sum to totals due to rounding.
- PIP data has been expanded to a 5-year time span to provide adequate data specific to Bournemouth.
- Appeals data is currently available to the end of December 2024. Because of this, clearances (which are available to the end of January 2025) have had to be limited to the end of September 2024 to allow time for a claimant to go through the appeal process which takes an average of 3 months.
- Appeals data taken from the DWP PIP computer system’s management information. Therefore, this appeals data may differ from that held by Her Majesty’s Courts and Tribunals Service for various reasons such as delays in data recording and other methodological differences in collating and preparing statistics.
- Not all Tribunal appeals will relate to the outcome of the PIP assessment, but other aspects of the PIP process.
- The Local Authority of Bournemouth was used to identify claimants in Bournemouth. The Local Authority geography relates to the origin of the claim (i.e. derived from claimant’s postcode) rather than the location of where the tribunal was held.
- Figures for DLA are rounded to the nearest thousand in (a) and nearest 10 in (b).
Asked by: Jessica Toale (Labour - Bournemouth West)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what assessment her Department has made of the potential merits of back-dating payments for disability benefits to cover the qualifying period for people with cancer diagnoses.
Answered by Stephen Timms - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
The qualifying period is an important part of the eligibility process for disability benefits and helps establish that the health condition or disability, and resulting needs, are of a long-standing nature.
Payment commences once the three-month qualifying period has been satisfied. Claims can be submitted before this point and consideration is always given to whether any of the qualifying period has been satisfied prior to the date of claim. The qualifying period commences from the point that needs arise, which can be before a diagnosis of cancer or any other health condition
Individuals with a terminal illness, with twelve-months or less to live are exempt from the qualifying period.
Asked by: Jessica Toale (Labour - Bournemouth West)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, whether her Department has made an assessment of the potential merits of equalising the (a) basic and (b) new State Pension.
Answered by Emma Reynolds - Economic Secretary (HM Treasury)
We are absolutely committed to supporting pensioners and giving them the dignity and security they deserve in retirement.
We have made no such assessment. It is not possible to make direct, like for like comparisons between State Pension amounts received under the pre 2016 State Pension system and the new State Pension. Under both systems, the amount people are entitled to varies according to their National Insurance record. It is not the case that everyone in the new system receives more than everyone in the pre 2016 system.
Asked by: Jessica Toale (Labour - Bournemouth West)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, for what reason her Department has set a limit for the amount of income that someone in receipt of carer's allowance can earn.
Answered by Stephen Timms - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
The primary purpose of Carer’s Allowance is to provide a measure of financial support to those who’s ability to work is constrained by providing care for someone else for at least thirty-five hours per week. The eligibility conditions for the benefit use income as a proxy for ability to work.
We know that some carers are keen to maintain contact with the labour market, so we want to encourage carers to combine some paid work with their caring duties wherever possible.
This is why the Government has announced that from April 2025 the weekly Carer’s Allowance earnings limit will be pegged to the level of 16 hours work at the National Living Wage (NLW) and in future it will increase when the NLW increases. This means that unpaid carers will be able to earn up to £196 per week net earnings and still receive Carer’s Allowance compared to £151 now.
Asked by: Jessica Toale (Labour - Bournemouth West)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what training her Department provides to its staff on supporting people who have experienced trauma.
Answered by Andrew Western - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)
The DWP has a dedicated Trauma Informed Approach Integration Programme and we are at the start of an ambitious journey. Our integration programme applies the six core pillars of the approach; safety, trustworthiness, choice, empowerment, collaboration and cultural consideration within the framework of, our colleagues, our customers, our culture and the context of our interactions (whether that is physical, telephony, digital or postal). Alongside internal and external experts, we have established an eight-stage roadmap for implementation. We anticipate we will have completed the eight stages of design by 2030, making trauma informed approaches fundamental to our business-as-usual approach.
With response to the query around what training is provided, as part of a wider trauma informed training framework we have piloted an introductory module for all colleagues to develop awareness of the pervasive impacts of trauma and to develop the skills required for trauma informed interactions with customers. This product is currently in iteration to align with the wider trauma informed framework of learning that becomes more intensive depending on the colleague’s role. This module is part of a wider roll out within the framework which will be coproduced with customers, colleagues and experts. Supplementary learning products will also be made available to support embedding trauma informed principles into our business-as-usual approach.
Asked by: Jessica Toale (Labour - Bournemouth West)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, whether her Department is implementing a trauma-informed approach across all its services.
Answered by Andrew Western - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)
The Trauma Informed Approach recognises the pervasive impacts that trauma may have on an individual’s life; these impacts can span social, emotional, physiological, neurological and spiritual functioning. The impacts of trauma can make interacting with services a difficult and potentially retraumatising experience, the trauma informed approach is a way of trying to avoid and mitigate this risk whilst creating a safe and empowering environment for all colleagues and customers. The approach has six core pillars: safety, trustworthiness, choice, empowerment, collaboration and cultural consideration (Office for Health Improvements and Disparities, 2022).
The DWP has a dedicated Trauma Informed Approach Integration Programme and we are at the start of an ambitious journey. Our integration programme applies the six core pillars of the approach within the framework of, our colleagues, our customers, our culture and the context of our interactions (whether that is physical, telephony, digital or postal). The design of the programme has been informed by close working with operational teams across the department and is being tested in our Trauma Informed ‘Pulse points’ and innovation hubs. Alongside internal and external experts, we have established an eight-stage roadmap for implementation across the DWP with a core focus on co-production with colleagues, customers and stakeholders. We anticipate we will have completed the eight stages of design by 2030, making trauma informed approaches fundamental to our business-as-usual approach.
Asked by: Jessica Toale (Labour - Bournemouth West)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what assessment she has made of the potential impact of the assessment process for Personal Independent Payment on the mental health of those assessed; and if she will reform that process.
Answered by Stephen Timms - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
DWP and our assessment providers are committed to providing a quality, sensitive and respectful service, with an approach aimed at continual improvement.
We recognise that attending a consultation can be a stressful experience for some people, which is why where there is sufficient available evidence, Personal Independence Payment assessments are carried out via a paper-based review. Where an assessment is required, claimants are encouraged to include another person where they would find this helpful, for example, by reassuring them or helping them during the consultation. The person chosen is at the discretion of the claimant and might be, but is not limited to, a parent, family member, friend, carer or advocate.
The Department’s Health Transformation Programme (HTP) is modernising benefit services to improve customer experience, build trust in our services and the decisions we make, and create a more efficient service.
The Government believes there is a strong case to change the system of health and disability benefits across Great Britain so that it better enables people to enter and remain in work, and to respond to the complex and fluctuating nature of the health conditions many people live with today.
We will bring forward a Green Paper in spring 2025. We will listen to and engage with disabled people as we develop proposals for reform in this area and across the employment support system.
Asked by: Jessica Toale (Labour - Bournemouth West)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what progress she has made on reforming the welfare system for people with mental ill-health.
Answered by Stephen Timms - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
The Government believes there is a strong case to change the system of health and disability benefits across Great Britain so that it better enables people to enter and remain in work, and to respond to the complex and fluctuating nature of the health conditions many people live with today.
We will be working to develop proposals for reform in the months ahead and will set them out for consultation and engagement in a Green Paper in spring 2025.
This Government is committed to putting the views and voices of disabled people at the heart of all that we do, so we will consult on these proposals with disabled people and representative organisations.