Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, for what reasons there is a residency requirement for British citizens moving back from abroad for Personal Independence Payments but not for other disability benefits.

Personal Independence Payment (PIP), in line with the other extra costs disability benefits, Attendance Allowance and Disability Living Allowance, applies a habitual residence test and a past presence test whereby a claimant must have been present in Great Britain for 104 of the last 156 weeks to be entitled to payment. These rules operate to ensure that claimants, including British citizens returning from overseas, have a recent and long-standing association with Great Britain to justify receipt of a non-contributory, non means tested benefit funded by the British taxpayer.