Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, whether her Department plans to introduce a substantial risk element into the PIP assessment process.

In our Green Paper, Pathways to Work: Reforming Benefits and Support to Get Britain Working, we announced our plans to scrap the Work Capability Assessment and use the single Personal Independence Payment assessment to assess entitlement for the Universal Credit health element. We are considering how change of this kind could affect individuals who currently meet limited capability for work and work-related activity criteria due to non-functional special circumstances; including those currently classed as having substantial risk.

We also announced plans to launch a process to review the PIP assessment. We will bring together a range of experts, stakeholders and people with lived experience to consider how best to do this and to start the process as part of preparing for a review. Any changes to the PIP assessment will need to work alongside the reforms set out in the Green Paper.