Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what proportion of personal independence payment applicants who are refused on initial assessment were applying on the grounds of primarily mental health issues between (a) 2018-19, (b) 2019-20 and (c) 2020-21.

In the Personal Independence Payment (PIP) application process, claimants’ main disabling condition is only recorded for collation by the Department at assessment. It is not recorded at the point of application. The Department does not therefore hold data on the reason for application or the number of applicants to PIP with particular conditions. Only those who have a disability assessment determination decision will have a main disabling condition recorded for them.

The Department does collect data on the main disability condition for those who have had a PIP assessment. This can be found in Stat-Xplore: https://stat-xplore.dwp.gov.uk/. Stat-Xplore holds data up until October 2021.

The ‘PIP Clearance’ tables contain details of those awarded and disallowed, broken down by disability. The Disability Category ‘Psychiatric Disorders’ includes mental health issues. The full disability hierarchy can be found here: Disability Category / Disability Sub Group (dwp.gov.uk).

Guidance on how to use Stat-Xplore can be found here:

https://stat-xplore.dwp.gov.uk/webapi/online-help/index.html.