Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many and what proportion of people claiming Personal Independence Payments with covid-19 classified as their primary reason for claiming that benefit are awaiting a tribunal hearing.

As of March 2021, a new code, ‘Coronavirus Covid-19’, has been added to the Personal Independence Payment (PIP) disability coding system in the Infectious disease, Viral disease B01-B10 section with other viral diseases.

Claimants under ‘Coronavirus Covid-19’ are a group of people who remain unwell at 12 weeks, with a wide variety of symptoms whose long-term prognosis is unknown. These people meet the diagnostic criteria for post Covid-19 syndrome. Some may recover in a few more months, some may recover over a longer time period. Others may remain unwell or become more unwell over time. Fluctuating functional impairment and wide-ranging symptoms that change over time seem to be a feature of the condition. It is those claimants who have significant functional impairment at 12 weeks who do not seem to be recovering, who may have entitlement to PIP. Claimants do not have to have had a positive test result to be diagnosed with the syndrome. Testing has not always been easily available.

For Personal Independence Payment (PIP) initial decisions made up to 30^th June 2022, where ‘Coronavirus Covid-19’ was recorded as a claimant’s primary condition, there were 290 lodged appeals (8% of initial decisions) with no appeal outcome recorded by 30^th September 2022.

Please note:

• Figures are rounded to the nearest 10 and percentages to the nearest percent;
• Data is based on primary disabling condition as recorded on the PIP computer system. Claimants may often have multiple conditions upon which the decision is based but only the primary condition is shown in these statistics. Please note that there may be other claimants where the ongoing impact of a Coronavirus infection has influenced the award of PIP. There may be claimants with Coronavirus Covid-19 who came onto the benefit before March 2021 who are not recorded under the new code;
• We have provided data for England and Wales (excluding Scotland) in line with the latest published figures on PIP;
• These figures include initial decisions following assessment for PIP (New Claims and Reassessments) up to 30^th June 2022, the latest date for which published data is available;
• These figures include appeal outcomes up to 30^th September 2022, the latest date for which published data is available. Note that more appeals could be made and completed after September 2022, so numbers may change as it can take some time for an appeal to be lodged and then cleared after the initial decision;

• Figures provided include all lodged appeals without a recorded outcome in the latest published data. Some of these appeals may be lapsed by DWP, withdrawn by the claimant, or struck out by the tribunal, so it may not be the case that all will be heard by a tribunal; and
• A lapsed appeal is where DWP changed the decision in the customer’s favour after an appeal was lodged, but before it was heard at a tribunal hearing.