Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many recommendations advanced in independent reviews of the operation of (a) personal independence payments and (b) employment support allowance his Department has (i) accepted and (ii) implemented.

The Government has welcomed the publication of both the first and second statutory Independent Reviews of Personal Independence Payment (PIP) carried out by Paul Gray. Paul Gray made a total of twenty-eight recommendations and the Government has accepted or partially accepted all of them.

The Government published its response to the second Independent Review on 18 December 2017. Annexes A and B in our response sets out the progress we have made since the first Independent Review on implementing the recommendations and what we will do next to further improve PIP .

The DWP had a statutory commitment to independently review the Employment and Support Allowance Work Capability Assessment (WCA) annually for the first five years. Professor Malcolm Harrington carried out the first three Independent Reviews and Dr Paul Litchfield carried out the remaining two. In all, the Department accepted and implemented over 100 recommendations.

The Government responses to the Independent Reviews of PIP can be found at:

The first response to the first review -https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/personal-independence-payment-pip-assessments-first-independent-review-government-response

The second response to the first review – https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/personal-independence-payment-pip-assessments-first-independent-review-second-government-response

The response to the second review - https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/personal-independence-payment-pip-assessment-second-independent-review-government-response

The Government responses to the reviews of the WCA can be found at:

Year 1 - https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/government-response-to-the-work-capability-assessment-independent-review-year-1

Year 2 - https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/government-response-to-the-work-capability-assessment-independent-review-year-2

Year 3 - https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/government-response-to-the-work-capability-assessment-independent-review-year-3

Year 4 - https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/government-response-to-the-work-capability-assessment-independent-review-year-4

Year 5 - https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/government-response-to-the-work-capability-assessment-independent-review-year-5