Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many people with multiple sclerosis in (a) Scotland, (b) Northern Ireland, (c) Wales and (d) England who made a new application for personal independence payments appealed the decision made by her Department at tribunal and had that decision overturned by (i) her Department before the date of the tribunal and (ii) the tribunal in each year since 2013.

The information requested on Personal Independence Payment (PIP) mandatory reconsiderations (MR) and appeals for claimants with a primary disabling condition of Multiple Sclerosis in Scotland, Wales and England can be found in the tables below.

The Northern Irish Assembly has devolved responsibility for social security benefits. The responsibility for statistics in Northern Ireland lies with the Department for Communities: http://www.communities-ni.gov.uk

Since PIP was introduced 4.1m decisions have been made up to March 2019, of these 10% have been appealed and 5% have been overturned.

Reassessments from Disability Living Allowance (DLA) to PIP.

Table 1: The number of Initial Decisions, MRs and appeals for reassessment claims to PIP with a main disabling condition of multiple sclerosis, Scotland.

Table 2: The number of Initial Decisions, MRs and appeals for reassessment claims to PIP with a main disabling condition of multiple sclerosis, Wales.

Table 3: The number of Initial Decisions, MRs and appeals for reassessment claims to PIP with a main disabling condition of multiple sclerosis, England.

New Claims to PIP.

Table 4: The number of Initial Decisions, MRs and appeals for PIP new claims with a main disabling condition of multiple sclerosis, Scotland.

Table 5: The number of Initial Decisions, MRs and appeals for PIP new claims with a main disabling condition of multiple sclerosis, Wales.

Table 6: The number of Initial Decisions, MRs and appeals for PIP new claims with a main disabling condition of multiple sclerosis, England.

Source: PIP Computer System

All data rounded to the nearest 10. # refers to where there are less than 5 cases.

Components may not sum to totals due to rounding.

In the application process, claimants’ primary disabling condition is only recorded for collation by the Department at assessment.

Data is based on primary disabling condition as recorded on the PIP computer systems. Claimants may often have multiple disabling conditions upon which the decision is based but only the primary condition is shown in these statistics.

The geography relates to the origin of the claim (i.e. derived from claimant’s postcode).

PIP data includes normal rules and special rules for the terminally ill claimants.

Some decisions which are changed at MR, and where the claimant continues to appeal for a higher PIP award, are then changed again at tribunal appeal. Therefore the number of people who had a decision changed at MR and the number of people who had a decision changed at tribunal appeal cannot be added together.

Lapsed appeals are where DWP changed the decision after an appeal was lodged but before it was heard at Tribunal.

Claimants who have received benefit decisions more recently may not yet have had time to complete the claimant journey and progress to an MR and appeal.