Asked by: Paul Foster (Labour - South Ribble)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many people in South Ribble constituency are in receipt of Personal Independence Payment (PIP); how those payments are broken down between the (a) daily living and (b) mobility component; and how many of those people did not score a four or above on the assessment criteria.
Answered by Stephen Timms - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
As of January 2025, there are 5,340 people currently in receipt of Personal Independence Payment (PIP) in the South Ribble Parliamentary Constituency. Of these claimants, 2,530 scored fewer than 4 points in the 10 Daily Living activities. The breakdown of award rates for Daily Living and Mobility can be found in Table 1 below.
The assessment of the Office for Budget Responsibility, published at the Spring Statement, is that most of the current claimants of PIP Daily Living who did not score four points in any of the activities at their last assessment will, nevertheless, because of behaviour changes, be awarded PIP Daily Living again after the proposed eligibility changes take effect.
There will be no immediate changes. We want to reassure anyone concerned that the changes to PIP eligibility and rebalancing of UC aren’t coming into effect immediately. Our intention is these changes will start to come into effect from April 2026 for UC and November 2026 for PIP, subject to parliamentary approval.
We will also guarantee that for those on UC, individuals with the most severe, life-long conditions, which mean a person cannot and will never work, will not need to be reassessed in future.
Our intention is that the PIP changes will apply to new claims and award reviews from November 2026, subject to parliamentary approval. If you are getting PIP now and could be affected by the changes we plan to make to eligibility, the changes will only apply at your next award review. The average award review is about three years. At your next review, you will be seen by a trained assessor or healthcare professional, and assessed on your individual needs and circumstance.
For those who are affected by the new eligibility changes, we are consulting on how best to support this group, including how to make sure health and eligible care needs are met. PIP is not based on your condition, it is based on the functional disability as the result of one or more conditions and it is the additional costs of sum of that disability that PIP is awarded for.
We also intend to launch a wider review of the PIP assessment led by the Minister for Social Security and Disability, and we will bring together a range of experts, stakeholders and people with lived experience to consider how best to do this and to start the process as part of preparing for a review. We will provide further details as plans progress.
Table 1: the volume of claimants in the South Ribble constituency split by award rate for Daily Living and Mobility components of PIP
Daily Living | Mobility | |||
| Enhanced | Standard | Nil | Total |
Enhanced | 1,940 | 580 | 250 | 2,780 |
Standard | 670 | 800 | 870 | 2,340 |
Nil | 100 | 130 | - | 230 |
Total | 2,710 | 1,520 | 1,120 | 5,340 |
Note:
Asked by: Paul Foster (Labour - South Ribble)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what estimate her Department has made of the number of women impacted by the maladministration of pension communications as highlighted by the WASPI campaign in South Ribble constituency.
Answered by Torsten Bell - Parliamentary Secretary (HM Treasury)
ONS population estimates suggest that in 2021 there were 6,495 females born in the 1950s resident in the South Ribble constituency, who are impacted by the equalisation of the State Pension age.
We do not know how many of these women were impacted by maladministration in the communication of state pension age changes.
Asked by: Paul Foster (Labour - South Ribble)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many and what proportion of pensioners receive Pension Credit in South Ribble constituency; and how many of these are new recipients since 31 July 2024.
Answered by Torsten Bell - Parliamentary Secretary (HM Treasury)
The latest available data shows that in Winter 2023 to 2024, there were 14,717 pensioner households living in the South Ribble constituency. This is based on winter-fuel-payments-household-2023-to-2024.ods.
At that point in time, 1,528 pensioner households received Pension Credit in the South Ribble constituency. This is based on February 2024 Pension Credit statistics which are available via DWP Stat-Xplore.
Based on these figures, 10.4% of pensioner households in the South Ribble constituency received Pension Credit in February 2024.
The latest Pension Credit statistics were published in November 2024 and cover the period up to May 2024. The next iteration of Pension Credit caseload statistics will be released on 18th February, as part of the DWP Benefits Statistics quarterly release. This will contain data for the period from June 2024 to the end of August 2024. Following release, the data can also be accessed at Stat-Xplore - Home.
Asked by: Paul Foster (Labour - South Ribble)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many people are in receipt of Pension Credit in South Ribble constituency; and if she will make an estimate of the number of people who are not claiming Pension Credit but are eligible in that constituency.
Answered by Emma Reynolds - Economic Secretary (HM Treasury)
Caseload statistics are routinely published and made publicly available via DWP Stat-xplore. At February 2024, there were 1,528 people claiming Pension Credit in South Ribble constituency.
Information relating to Pension Credit eligibility is only available via take-up statistics. The latest available Pension Credit take-up statistics for Great Britain cover the financial year 2021 to 2022 and are available at: Income-related benefits: estimates of take-up: financial year ending 2022 - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk). However, these statistics are only available at Great Britain level and cannot be broken down to smaller geographical areas.
Asked by: Paul Foster (Labour - South Ribble)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many people in South Ribble constituency received a winter fuel payment in the 2023-24 financial year.
Answered by Emma Reynolds - Economic Secretary (HM Treasury)
Annual statistics on the number of Winter Fuel Payment recipients and households by local authority and by Westminster parliamentary constituency are made publicly available via GOV.UK. The latest release contains data on individual and household level statistics for winter 2022 to 2023. For Winter 2022 to 2023, 22,044 people received a Winter Fuel Payment in South Ribble constituency.