Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask Her Majesty's Government, further to the Written Answer by Baroness Buscombe on 4 July (HL9015), what assessment, if any, they have made of (1) the relevance of ethnicity in ensuring good management of claims for Personal Independence Payments; and (2) on what basis gender is considered relevant for the collection of data and good management of claims, while ethnicity is not.

Whilst designing Personal Independence Payment (PIP), the Department considered the relevance of what data should be collected and recorded to support the good management of a PIP claim. PIP is based on needs arising from a long-term health condition or disability so ethnicity is not a factor in the decision making process in PIP. However, DWP does collect data on ethnicity from other sources, such as the Family Resources Survey, and are considering how we can better use this information, and review other activities, to give assurance that the assessment process does not disproportionately impact on BAME communities