Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many people have (a) applied for and (b) received personal independence payments support from his Department related to inflammatory bowel disease.

The requested information for the number of Personal Independence Payment (PIP) applications for people with inflammatory bowel disease is not available because information on PIP claimants’ disabling conditions is not collected at the initial claim application stage.

The number of people in receipt of PIP with a main disabling condition of inflammatory bowel disease is 5,100, as at the 30^th April 2017 and has been published at the following link. Please see the tables “Personal Independence Payment: Detailed medical condition, April 2017 caseload” and filter by ‘Inflammatory bowel disease on the subgroup category. This publication is updated quarterly.

https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/personal-independence-payment-april-2013-to-april-2017

Data is based on primary disabling condition as recorded on the PIP computer system. Claimants may often have multiple disabling conditions upon which the decision is based but only the primary condition is shown in these statistics. Therefore, there may be other claimants in receipt of PIP who have been diagnosed with inflammatory bowel disease who are not captured in the data.