Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, with reference to the policy paper entitled Transforming Support: The Health and Disability White Paper, published on 15 March 2023, what criteria his Department used to select participants in the Severe Disability Group test.

We have moved forward with our plans to test the SDG. We have worked with an expert group of specialist health professionals to draw up a set of draft criteria for eligibility. These criteria were shared with several charities and their feedback was used to improve our draft criteria, which will be further developed in the testing process. The draft criteria focus on severe, long-term impairment and we will share further details as we go through testing.

Testing for the Severe Disability Group is still ongoing. This policy is being tested on a small scale across a range of health conditions. We will then gather insight from service users, DWP staff, and organisations to make sure it works as intended.