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 impact of proposed changes to Personal Independence Payment on people living with (a) cancer and (b) the long-term side effects of cancer treatment.

Answered by Mims Davies - Shadow Minister (Women)

Modernising Support for Independent Living: The Health and Disability Green Paper looks at different options to reshape the current welfare system so that we can provide better targeted support to those who need it most. We are considering these options through our 12-week consultation which was published on Monday 29 April and will close on Monday 22 July at 11:59pm. Any possible impacts on people living with cancer and people living with the long-term side effects of cancer treatment will be considered as necessary.

There will be no immediate changes to PIP, or to health assessments. All scheduled PIP assessments and payments will proceed as normal, and claimants should continue to engage as usual and provide any necessary information or updates regarding their circumstances.

We encourage everyone to respond to the consultation which can be found here, so that we are able to hear from as many disabled people, people with health conditions, their representatives, and local stakeholders as possible on these important issues.

Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what his planned timetable is to commence payment of compensation for firefighter pension arrears in accordance with the firefighter pension scheme immediate detriment framework of March 2023.

Answered by Chris Philp - Shadow Home Secretary

The relevant legislation provides that all eligible members of the firefighters’ pension scheme will be given a choice to remedy the discrimination set out in the McCloud/Sargeant judgment and that information should be provided to eligible members by 1 April 2025.

Adjustments to individual members’ benefits are an administrative matter and the Firefighters’ pension scheme is locally administered by each of the separate Fire and Rescue Authorities in England. The Home Office does not have a role in the administrative processes and does not hold information on administrative processes in Fire and Rescue Authorities.

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Question

What discussions has the Minister had with the UK Government to ensure that personal independence payment assessments are carried out in a fair, consistent and accurate manner?

Answered by Minister for Social Justice

At the start of this government term I wrote to wrote to the Secretary of State for the Department of Work and Pensions (DWP) highlighting the concerns Welsh Government has over the assessments undertaken by healthcare professionals for Personal Independence Payment (PIP) claims.  I know that many disabled people in Wales find the process to be complicated, time-consuming and anxiety inducing; often leading to unfair decisions based on the opinion of a sole assessor. I urged the Secretary of State to look at the lessons that can be learnt from the approach being taken by the Scottish Government who are collecting more information from claimants, their medical professionals and carers in order to reduce the need for face-to-face assessments in their decision-making on entitlement to the Scottish disability benefits.

In October 2021, the Minister for Health and Social Services and I sent a cross government response to Chloe Smith MP, Minister for Disabled People on the DWP’s Health and Disability Green Paper. In the response we noted the current PIP assessment process places the focus on the disability rather than the person and re-iterated the importance of DWP processes adhering to the social model of disability. We recommended changes are made to the PIP assessment to enable a person-centred integrated health assessment to be carried out.  We believe this will result in a fair outcome with fewer decisions having to be challenged through the Mandatory Reconsideration process or before a Social Security Tribunal.

We requested that Welsh Government officials are included in any DWP discussions relating to developing and implementing changes to the PIP assessment process.

DWP are due to publish their Health and Disability White Paper later this year, and I look forward to reading the positive action that will be taken to ensure that disabled people across Wales are treated with fairness, dignity and compassion when seeking financial support from the United Kingdom welfare benefit system.

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