Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, if she will make an assessment of the potential merits of changing personal independence payment (PIP) criteria so that people with worsening health conditions who did not receive the mobility component of PIP prior to reaching retirement age can claim that component (a) on and (b) after reaching retirement age in the event that their health condition worsens.

The aim of Personal Independence Payment (PIP) is to focus additional help with the extra costs of disability on people who become severely disabled earlier in life and who, as a consequence, face limited opportunities to work, earn and save compared with other people. Once PIP has been awarded, and subject to the conditions of entitlement continuing to be met, it can continue in payment after reaching State Pension age (SPa).

It is normal for social security schemes to contain different provisions for people at different stages of their lives, which reflect varying priorities and circumstances. For PIP, claimants who are in receipt of the benefit when they reach SPa can continue to receive it after that point but cannot establish a new entitlement to the mobility component or receive a higher award of the mobility component if they were receiving the standard rate. This was also the case for Disability Living Allowance which PIP replaces.

These rules recognise that developing mobility needs is a common and foreseeable feature of the ageing process and puts PIP recipients in the same position as someone over State Pension age who claims Attendance Allowance which does not have a mobility component.

We have no plans to review these rules.