My Lords, by the leave of the House I shall repeat as a Statement an Answer given to an Urgent Question in Another place by my Right Honourable Friend the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions on the withdrawal of her appeal—Secretary of State for Work and Pensions v AN & JM CPIP/1882/2015 CPIP/1159/2016—in relation to personal independent payments:

“I am absolutely committed to ensuring that disabled people and people with health conditions get the right support they need. PIP is a modern, personalised benefit that assesses claimants on needs, not conditions. It continues to be a better benefit than its predecessor, DLA, for claimants with chronic conditions. Under DLA, only 16% of claimants with diabetes received the top rate, whereas under PIP 29% receive the top rate.

I carefully considered these historic cases and decided to no longer continue with these appeals in order to provide certainty to the claimants. Since withdrawing the appeals, I have provided instructions to operational colleagues to put these claims in payment urgently. These claimants will receive any backdated moneys owed and should receive their first payment within the coming days.

These cases were decided prior to the March 2017 amending regulations, where the Government clarified their policy for managing therapy under PIP daily living activity 3. These regulations are not affected by our decision to withdraw these appeals”.