Asked by: Judith Cummins (Labour - Bradford South)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what steps he is taking to ensure that Personal Independence Payment assessment providers have awareness of Charcot-Marie-Tooth disease.
Answered by Tom Pursglove
Personal Independence Payment assessment providers (APs) are required to ensure that all health professionals (HP) carrying out assessments are experts in disability analysis, focusing on the effects of health conditions and impairments on the individual claimant's daily life
Whilst HPs do not receive specific training relating to Charcot-Marie-Tooth disease, they have access to a range of resources as well as experienced clinicians who can support them in assessing individuals with conditions that they may not be familiar with. APs also engage with medical experts, charities, and relevant stakeholders to strengthen their training programmes.
In the Health & Disability White Paper, the department committed to developing the skills of HPs. As a result, the department began a proof of concept to match an individual's primary health condition to a HP who has professional experience in their condition. In addition to their professional experience, HPs will also take part in training to specialise in the functional impacts of specific health conditions.
Asked by: Judith Cummins (Labour - Bradford South)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what steps his Department is taking to support families' with childcare following changes to work related activity requirements for lead carers.
Answered by Jo Churchill
From 28 June 2023, the DWP will now provide even more help with upfront childcare costs for parents on Universal Credit who wish to move into or progress in work.
At the same time, we have also increased the generosity of the Universal Credit childcare costs maximum amounts by nearly 50%.
These changes are part of a much wider package of generous childcare reforms including a phased introduction of 30 hours of free childcare for almost all working parents of children aged between nine months and three years of age.
Asked by: Judith Cummins (Labour - Bradford South)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, if he will make an assessment of the potential merits of (a) reinstating the Universal Credit uplift of £25 per week and (b) extending the uplift to cover Employment Support Allowance.
Answered by Guy Opperman
The Government has always been clear that the £20 increase was a temporary measure to support those households most economically affected by the economic shock of Covid-19. Since then, the Government has announced support to households to help with higher bills worth £94 billion across 2022-23 and 2023-24.
Asked by: Judith Cummins (Labour - Bradford South)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many and what proportion of people claiming personal independence payments had their award assessed through (a) a telephone consultation and (b) an in-person assessment in the last 12 months.
Answered by Tom Pursglove
Please see the table below showing the number and proportion of all Personal Independence Payment (PIP) assessments (including new claims, award reviews and change of circumstance), that have been carried out by (a) telephone and (b) face-to-face for the period February 2022 to January 2023:
Channel | Feb 2022 - Jan 2023 |
Telephone | 661,620 (66.6% of all assessments) |
Face-to-face | 69,570 (7.0% of all assessments) |
Although not included in your question, we also conduct paper-based and video assessments, where appropriate, alongside telephone and face-to-face assessments as detailed below:
Channel | Feb 2022 - Jan 2023 |
Paper-based | 179,390 (18.1% of all assessments) |
Video | 69,140 (7.0% of all assessments) |
There were also 13,270 completed assessments (1.3%) for which we do not hold data.
Please note