Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what assessment he has made of how physical conditions which cause significant cognitive and mental health symptoms will be affected by planned changes to mobility activity 1 of the personal independence payment assessment.

The assessment for Personal Independence Payment (PIP) is designed to treat people as individuals, considering the impact of their impairment or health condition on their everyday life and how each claimant has personally adapted to living with a disability.

Mobility Activity 1, ‘planning and following a journey’, assesses whether a claimant can plan and navigate a journey by themselves or whether they need support to complete a journey, familiar or unfamiliar. The regulatory changes which came into effect on 16^th March 2017 are intended to restore the original policy intent and as such there will be no impact on those with a physical or mental health condition. In fact, at the latest reporting, 27% of PIP recipients with a mental health condition get the enhanced rate mobility component, compared to 9% receiving the higher rate DLA mobility component.