Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what estimate her Department has made of when the average waiting time for a Personal Independence Payment assessment will return to that prior to the covid-19 outbreak.

We do not forecast Personal Independence Payment (PIP) assessment waiting times.

In February 2020, pre-covid, the median waiting time for a PIP assessment was 9 weeks for new claims, and 10 weeks for reassessments. In April 2022 (the latest available data) the median times waiting for a PIP assessment was 12 weeks for new claims and 11 weeks for reassessments.

Time waiting for a PIP assessment is defined as the time from the date an application was referred to the provider from the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) to the date the assessment was completed and referred back to DWP. Where claimants are outstanding, the assessment is not yet complete.

Median waiting times for each stage of the claimant process can be found in published stats.