Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what assessment he has made of the potential impact of proposals in the Work Capability Assessment: activities and descriptors consultation on the number of disabled people living in poverty.

The consultation closed on Monday 30 October and covered a range of options on the Work Capability Assessment. We received over 1,300 responses to the consultation and these are now being considered.

The department has developed estimates of the number of claimants impacted across the range of options being considered in the Work Capability Assessment activities and descriptors consultation.

Assessing poverty impacts would involve projecting forward every household’s income and individual circumstances, which is not possible to do with confidence.