Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, whether he has made an assessment of the effect of the introduction of the 20-metre rule on the level of people's eligibility for personal independence payment compared with previous levels of eligibility for disability living allowance.

The development of the Personal Independence Payment (PIP) assessment has been carried out in an iterative, transparent and consultative manner. It was developed in collaboration with a wide range of experts and through comprehensive public consultation.

The consultation process confirmed there is no consensus across the health and social care community of the perfect measure of mobility and there is no evidence for one particular distance.

The 20 metre distance was introduced in PIP to distinguish those whose mobility is significantly more limited than others and who face even greater barriers on a day to day basis – those who have the highest need.

There are 104,000 PIP claimants receiving the enhanced rate of mobility who previously were not awarded the higher rate mobility in Disability Living Allowance in the period April 2013 to October 2017.