Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what recent discussions he has had with (a) ministerial colleagues and (b) stakeholders on taking steps to improve the experience of (i) Personal Independence Payment, (ii) Employment and Support Allowance and (iii) Universal Credit work capability assessments for people with mental health problems.

In ‘Shaping Future Support - The Health and Disability Green Paper’, we explored how the benefits system can better meet the needs of claimants – including people with mental health conditions - now and in the future, by improving the claimant experience of our services, enabling independent living, and improving employment outcomes.

As well as receiving over 4,500 written responses, we held over 40 consultation events with disabled people, people with health conditions and their representatives.

We will bring forward proposals to respond to this in the White Paper.

The Health Transformation Programme (HTP) is modernising health and disability benefit services to vastly improve the claimant experience. We regularly and continually engage with both local and national stakeholders to gather insight and feedback to help inform how we will transform our services.