Social Security Benefits: Older People

(asked on 8th September 2021) - View Source

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what financial support she is providing to claimants over pension age who do not qualify for the mobility allowance of personal independence payment or the mobility scheme and who cannot claim attendance allowance, industrial injuries disabled benefit or constant attendance allowance.


Answered by
Justin Tomlinson Portrait
Justin Tomlinson
This question was answered on 13th September 2021

Government support for mobility needs is focused on people who become disabled earlier in life; developing mobility needs in older life is a normal consequence of ageing for which people can plan and save for.

Individuals can claim Personal Independence Payment (PIP) for the first time up to the day before they reach State Pension age (SPa). Once someone is in receipt of PIP they can continue to do so beyond SPa, including the mobility component if they were in receipt of it on reaching SPa, for as long as they fulfil the entitlement conditions. There are limited circumstances where someone in receipt of the mobility component can move between rates once over SPa.

PIP claimants over SPa cannot establish a new entitlement to either rate of the mobility component in line with the general principle set out above.

The upper age limit for claiming PIP by new claimants for the first time was last reviewed prior to the most recent changes to SPa made by the Pensions Act 2014 and we have no plans to amend the upper age limit.

Where someone develops mobility difficulties when over SPa they can use any benefit they receive, including the daily living component of PIP, to meet those needs in a way that best suits them. Additional travel concessions and support may also be available by reference to age, whether or not there are mobility needs.

Reticulating Splines