Diana Johnson – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Work and Pensions

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Diana Johnson on 2016-10-19.

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, pursuant to his Written Ministerial Statement of 10 October 2016, HCWS174, what steps his Department plans to take to ensure that relevant employment and support allowance claimants are not reassessed unnecessarily.

Penny Mordaunt

We will be working over the coming months with medical professionals and other stakeholders to develop a process and functional criteria that will help us identify those with the most severe health conditions or disabilities, for whom repeat work capability assessments can be stopped. This change will only apply to those placed in the Support Group and Universal Credit equivalent.

No proportion of Support Group claimants can be estimated until the criteria has been agreed. This change will come into effect by the end of 2017.