Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many and what proportion of people in receipt of the Personal Independence Payment enhanced daily living component were awarded less than four points in all daily living activities in (a) York Central constituency, (b) City of York Local Authority area and (c) York and North Yorkshire Combined Authority area in the most recent period for which data is available.

Information on the impacts of the Pathways to Work Green Paper has been published here ‘Pathways to Work: Reforming Benefits and Support to Get Britain Working Green Paper’(opens in a new tab), including an Evidence Pack which contains the maximum points scored on any Daily Living activity by Personal Independence Payment (PIP) claimants, broken down by Parliamentary Constituency and Local Authority. For York Central constituency, 42% of people scored fewer than 4 points at last assessment.

As the information is not published in the way you have requested, information on the volume and proportion of PIP claimants who received a standard Daily Living award rate and scored less than four points in all daily living activities, by different geographical breakdowns can be found in Table 1 below. This should not be equated with the number who are likely to lose PIP. It’s important to make a clear distinction between the two, not least because we don’t want constituents to be unnecessarily fearful about their situation, when we understand many are already anxious.

No one will lose access to PIP immediately. The changes, subject to parliamentary approval, would be brought in from November 2026. After that date, no one will lose PIP without first being reassessed by a trained assessor or healthcare professional, who assesses individual needs and circumstance. Reassessments happen on average every 3 years. Someone who didn’t score 4 points in an activity in a previous assessment may well score 4 points in a future assessment – not least as many conditions tend to get worse, not better, over time.

After taking account of behavioural changes, OBR predicts that 370,000 people who will be receiving PIP at the point of implementation of the four point requirement in November 2026, will have lost their PIP Daily Living entitlement by 2029/30. Of all PIP recipients at the point of implementation, 9 in 10 will not lose PIP during the subsequent 3 years from this change. If the OBR’s behavioural assumptions for England and Wales were applicable to York and North Yorkshire, around one-fifth of current claimants shown in table 1 would no longer receive their daily living component following review.

We are consulting on how best to support those who are affected by the new eligibility changes, including how to make sure health and eligible care needs are met. PIP is not based on condition diagnosis but on functional disability as the result of one or more conditions, and is awarded as a contribution to the additional costs which result.

We also intend to launch a wider review of the PIP assessment which I will lead, and we will bring together a range of experts, stakeholders and people with lived experience to consider how best to do this and to start the process as part of preparing for a review. We will provide further details as plans progress.

Even with these reforms, the overall number of people on PIP and DLA is expected to rise by 750,000 by the end of this parliament and spending will rise from £23bn in 24/25 to £31bn in 29/30.

Table 1: volume and percentage of PIP claimants who are in receipt of the daily living award rate and scored less than four points in all daily living activities by different geographical breakdowns

Notes:

• Data is for January 2025 caseload.
• Volumes are rounded to the nearest 100.
• Percentages are rounded to the nearest whole percentage.
• Data includes working aged claimants only.
• Data includes normal rules claimants only, and excludes special rules for end of life (SREL) claimants as they typically receive maximum or very high scores.
• Claimants with missing point scores have been excluded from the data.