Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, if he will assess the merits of implementing the Disability Benefits Consortium's recommendations on PIP assessors.

We have read and considered the Disability Benefits Consortium's recommendations with regards to Health Professionals who carry out PIP assessments. Independent reviews form an important part of the learning process and we are constantly looking to improve the experience of claiming PIP. We recognise the scale of the challenge in implementing a new benefit so committed to two, statutory independent reviews of PIP. The latest of these reviews, led by Paul Gray, was published on 30 March 2017 and we plan to respond to this later this year.

The Department encourages claimants to provide as much relevant evidence as necessary to support their claim. Before claimants are invited for a face-to-face consultation, all of the available evidence is reviewed and if, at that stage, advice to the Department can be made on this evidence alone, the claimants will not be required to attend a face-to-face assessment.

We continue to work extensively with the PIP assessment providers and disability representative groups to make improvements to guidance, training and audit procedures in order to ensure a quality service.