Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what plans his Department has to reform the assessment process for disability benefits; and what steps his Department takes to consult disabled people on such reforms.

We published ‘Shaping Future Support - The Health and Disability Green Paper’ last year, which proposed changes to the assessment process to make our services easier to access, make our processes simpler and help build people’s trust.

This included ways to further reduce the number of unnecessary assessments and of offering greater flexibility and simplicity in the way that assessments are delivered.

Our Health Transformation Programme is modernising Health and Disability benefit services. It will deliver a more efficient service and a vastly improved claimant experience, reducing journey times and improving trust in our services and decisions.

We received over 4,500 responses to the Health and Disability Green Paper consultation. We are very grateful to all the individuals and organisations who have contributed and will respond with a White Paper later this year.