Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what steps he plans to take to reduce the (a) number of appeals against decisions on personal independence payments and (b) success rate of such appeals.

7%, of all Personal Independence Payment (PIP) decisions have been appealed and 3% have been overturned.

As part of on-going review and improvement of PIP, we are continuing to make efforts to ensure that all decisions, whether made initially or at Mandatory Reconsideration (MR), are the best informed decisions. For example, the department is running a series of trials which looks at the end to end PIP decision making process with a particular focus on MR and explores the different ways we can improve the quality of our decision making.

However, it is important that claimants can appeal their award decision if they are unhappy with it. Moreover, a request for an appeal does not mean that the decisions taken initially and as part of Mandatory Reconsideration were not right. Claimants often provide new, relevant evidence at the tribunal stage.