Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, whether he plans to undertake an assessment of reasons for the increase in the number of employment and support allowance and personal independence payment appeals in the year ending March 2017.

The increase in appeals for these benefits was for the following reasons:

ESA. There has been a significant change over 2016/17 in the makeup of Work Capability Assessments. As capacity with the provider has increased, this has enabled us to undertake assessments on a greater range of cases, including more reassessment cases and more cases which require a face-to-face assessment. This has changed the case mix and we are seeing more fit-for-work and work-related activity group decisions. Fit-for-work decisions are more likely to be appealed. But it should be noted that between April 2014-December 2016, 2.1m ESA WCA decisions have been made, of these just 8% have been appealed and only 4% have been overturned.

PIP. The increase is consequent on the upscaling of the roll-out of the DLA to PIP migration programme. Those who either were not awarded PIP or were given a reduced award were likely to dispute those decisions. In the majority of successful appeals, decisions are overturned because people have submitted more oral or written evidence.