Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what recent assessment she has made of the (a) time it takes to clear a personal independence payment claim and (b) number of people waiting for a decision as of 1 November 2021.

In response to part (a) of this question, data on processing times for all Personal Independence Payment (PIP) New Claims to July 2021 (the latest available data) is published in Table 2A of the PIP Statistics tables which can be found here:

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1016795/tables-pip-statistics-to-july-2021.xlsx

Data relating to all PIP New Claims up until 31^st October will be released on 14^th December 2021.

In response to part (b) on this question, the information requested is not readily available and to provide it would incur disproportionate cost.