Social Security Benefits Disability

Written Question

Social Security Benefits: Disability

Thursday 2nd May 2024

Asked by: David Linden (Scottish National Party - Glasgow East)

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, with reference to the press release entitled Disability benefits system to be reviewed as PM outlines "moral mission" to reform welfare, published on 19 April 2024, what discussions he has had with the Scottish Government on the recently announced proposed reforms to the disability benefits system.

Answered by Mims Davies - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)

The department discusses various aspects of social security with the Scottish Government, at both Ministerial and official level. We continue to engage with the Scottish Government to consider the implications of the proposals outlined in the Prime Minister’s announcement and the Health and Disability Green Paper consultation in Scotland.

Modernising Support for Independent Living: The Health and Disability Green Paper was published on Monday 29 April.

The UK Government is committed to improving the lives of disabled people and people with long-term health conditions in all parts of the UK. Personal Independence Payment (PIP) is devolved in Scotland and has been replaced with Adult Disability Payment. No new claims to PIP have been made in Scotland since August 2022.

However, DWP continues to deliver PIP in Scotland for existing cases on behalf of Scottish Ministers whilst Scottish cases are being transferred to Social Security Scotland. All cases are due to be transferred in 2025 and DWP will no longer have any delegated administrative authority regarding PIP in Scotland once transfer is complete.

Written Question

Social Security Benefits: Disability

Tuesday 30th January 2024

Asked by: Alison McGovern (Labour - Wirral South)

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, pursuant to the Answer of 15 January 2024 to Question 7902 on Social Security Benefits: Disability, if she will provide a breakdown of those figures by age; and how many and what proportion of people who left the group in that time period did so as a result of reaching state pension age.

Answered by Mims Davies - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)

The age breakdown of the 65,900 claimants who were in the Limited Capability for Work-Related Activity group in November 2022 but had left that group by November 2023 is below. Currently we do not report aggregate information that directly identifies if the reason for leaving the group is as a result of reaching state pension age and to collate and quality assure this information would incur disproportionate costs. However, 15,700 of these claimants were aged 65 in November 2022, so would have turned 66 during the year.

Age Group	UC claimants who were in the LCWRA group in November 2022 but not in the LCWRA group in November 2023	Percentage
Missing - no match to age information	700	1.0%
Under 20	400	0.5%
20 - 24	3,000	4.5%
25 - 29	3,600	5.5%
30 - 34	4,400	6.6%
35 - 39	4,400	6.7%
40 - 44	4,600	6.9%
45 - 49	4,500	6.9%
50 - 54	5,700	8.7%
55 - 59	6,800	10.3%
60 - 64	7,700	11.6%
65 - 69	19,800	30.0%
70 and over	400	0.7%
Total	65,900

Notes:

These figures are rounded to the nearest 100, produced using internal MI and are not quality assured to Official Statistics standards.
The matching process to produce claimant age group information has resulted in small differences to the total LCWRA volume when compared to the previous response.
The monthly total age breakdowns of claimants on UC Health by stage are published on Stat-Xplore.