PIP Back Payments

Marsha De Cordova Excerpts

Tuesday 30th January 2018 Commons Chamber

[Marsha De Cordova (Battersea) (Lab)]

(Urgent Question): To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions to make a statement on the process and timetable for the personal independence payment back payments.

[The Minister for Disabled People, Health and Work (Sarah Newton)]

As a result of our decision not to appeal the recent PIP judicial review judgment, we informed the House via a written statement and in a response to a parliamentary question that we will be carrying out an administrative exercise to identify claimants who may now be eligible for more support from PIP. The Secretary of State took the decision less than three weeks ago. As previously said, we will be working with Mind—experts in the field—and doing things as sympathetically and effectively as possible. While efficiency is important, I cannot stress enough that I want the appropriate scrutiny and complete accuracy to be applied to this exercise, so it will not be rushed.

This exercise will include screening the existing PIP caseload of some 1.6 million people to identify the group who may benefit, but the vast majority of claimants will not be affected. As the Secretary of State said last week, we currently estimate that up to 220,000 people will be affected by the judgment. For the group of people who may be affected, we will undertake a detailed review of their applications and awards. We will write to the individuals affected, and all payments will be back-dated to the effective date in each individual claim. There will be no—I repeat, no—face-to-face reassessments of awards. DWP case managers will be conducting a review of the existing information we hold, with a view to establishing whether claimants are entitled to more. If case managers need more information to make a decision, they will contact the claimant and/or their doctor.

I am sure you will understand, Madam Deputy Speaker, that this is a complex exercise, and we need to undertake testing to ensure that we implement it safely. We therefore do not yet have an estimate of how long it will take. Obviously, we will keep the House updated on our progress in this exercise. Based on preliminary calculations, we estimate that the overall costs of implementing the judgment could be up to £3.7 billion by 2022-23. However, this number is highly likely to change as we work through all the impacted cases.

[Marsha De Cordova]

I thank Mr Speaker for granting this urgent question.

Following the written statement of 19 January and last week’s urgent question, yesterday we discovered in an answer to a written question that the Government will be reconsidering approximately 1.6 million PIP claims—effectively, everyone currently in receipt of PIP. However, no timetable was issued or detail provided for this process. We know that 55% of people with mental health conditions transferring from disability living allowance to PIP receive a lower award or no award at all. As the High Court found, the Government’s regulations are highly discriminatory.

I am pleased that the Secretary of State and the Minister’s Department have finally seen sense. However, there are a number of questions that the Minister must answer. By what date will the Department have changed the PIP assessment guide, so that she can implement the judgment? How quickly thereafter will the Department be able to identify affected claimants? Is her Department prioritising the PIP claims it is re-examining? If so, will she publish the prioritisation criteria? By what date will all 1.6 million PIP claims have been reviewed? Will it be weeks; will it be months; or will it be years? Do the 1.6 million claims to be reviewed include those that scored zero points and were not awarded PIP? Will there be an appeals process for the PIP claimants not contacted by the Department who believe that they should receive back payments? Will the Department compensate claimants who have fallen into debt and accrued interest charges? After the equality assessment was published in February 2017, the estimated number to receive the higher rate of PIP went up to 164,000, and it is now 220,000. Will the Minister publish an updated assessment? What assessment has she made of the administrative costs to her Department of undertaking this complex exercise of a considerable scale?

This mess is one of the Government’s own making. It is a clear example to this Government of the dangers of seeking to undermine both the independent judiciary and the House of Commons.

[Sarah Newton]

It is absolutely not true to say that we are trying to undermine the independent judiciary, because we have accepted the findings of the appeal and are now going to painstakingly, carefully and safely implement the findings. It is incredibly important for our democracy that we have an independent judiciary, and we stand by that.

The hon. Lady asked a number of questions. First, for clarification, the information that was provided in response to the written parliamentary question was absolutely the same as that given at this Dispatch Box by the Secretary of State last week and that contained in the written statement.

Moving on to some of the hon. Lady’s more detailed questions, she mentioned the updating of the PIP assessment guide. She is absolutely right: that is the starting point to making sure that we properly and thoroughly implement the recommendations of the appeal. I am delighted to say that Paul Farmer of Mind has agreed to work very closely with us to get that right. I have spoken to Paul Gray, who has undertaken the independent reviews of PIP, and he has also offered his help. I recently met a broad range of our PIP stakeholders and invited them to share their expertise.

As I said in my previous response, it is incredibly important to me that we get this right. The exercise will be complex and, to carry it out accurately and safely, we want to ensure that stakeholders and experts are involved. As a result, I cannot set out a timetable at this stage, but I can reassure all hon. Members that we are approaching this with a great deal of vigour and will ensure we do it as soon as possible. We have already started to recruit more people at DWP to help with the PIP review.

We want to discuss the prioritisation of the review of PIP claimants very carefully with our stakeholders to ensure that the process is fair, transparent and open. We will be reviewing people who had zero points in their original claim. We are currently considering the best way to handle an appeals process.

Of course, I will update the House regularly. The Secretary of State said that she would do that from this very Dispatch Box last week. We have oral questions every six weeks, so there are plenty of opportunities for Members to ask us about the progress we are making in this very important work.