Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, pursuant to the Answer of 11 June 2021 to Question 10306 and with reference to the response to part A of that Question, if she will publish the statistical information requested in response to a Parliamentary Question or via a Ministerial Statement; with reference to the response to part B of Question 10306, what costs are involved in publishing the statistical information held by her Department and not yet in the public domain as referenced in response to part A; and if she will respond to part D of Question 10306.

The number of claimants whose award has ended and were waiting for their new claim to be processed is not in the public domain.

New statistical information cannot be released via a Ministerial Statement. Under the Code of Practice for Statistics, statistics must be published so that they are equally available to all, not given to some people before others.

The statistics cannot be provided in response to a parliamentary question because the information requested is not readily available and to provide it would incur disproportionate cost. For PQs, there is a requirement to produce information to the same quality standard as Official Statistics. To assess the completeness of recording and quality assure the figures requested to this standard would take in excess of the time permitted to respond to a PQ and therefore incurs disproportionate cost.

In response to part (d) of question 10306, we always aim to make an award decision as quickly as possible and are treating as a priority advance claims, where a person’s previous fixed term award has ended. We are working with Assessment Providers to arrange assessment appointments as soon as possible. Where a person is found to still be eligible for PIP their award is backdated to the point they claimed, so no one loses out financially.