Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, with reference to Tables 5Aii and 6Aii in the official statistics entitled Personal Independence Payment: Official Statistics to July 2024, published on 17 September 2024, if she will make an assessment of the adequacy of the quality of personal independence payment decisions, in the context of the proportion of appeals which are lapsed or overturned at a tribunal hearing.

It is our aim to make the right decision as early as possible in the process. To support this we have made improvements to our decision-making processes, giving Decision Makers additional time to proactively contact customers if they think additional evidence may support the claim.

We will continue to learn from decisions overturned at appeal, for example we regularly gather feedback from Presenting Officers who attend tribunal.

Further, the Health Transformation Programme is transforming health and disability benefit services over the longer term to improve the claimant experience, and improve trust in our services and decisions. It is creating a new customer-focussed Health Assessment Service and transforming the entire PIP service, from finding out about benefits and eligibility through to decisions and payments.