PARLIAMENTARY DEBATE
PIP Changes: Impact on Carer’s Allowance - 27 March 2025 (Commons/Commons Chamber)

(Urgent Question): To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions if she will make a statement on the changes to personal independence payments and how that will impact those who receive carer’s allowance.

The “Pathways to Work” Green Paper sets out our plan to fix a broken system, providing proper employment support for those who can work, and a strong and sustainable safety net for everybody who needs it. We will change personal independence payments to focus support on those in the greatest need. That change will be in primary legislation, with a full debate and scrutiny in Parliament. The cost of personal independence payments has increased by £2 billion above inflation in each of the past five years, and those increases are carrying on. That is simply not sustainable.

In the Green Paper, we are consulting on how best to support those affected by the changes to eligibility, for example with transitional protections for those no longer eligible for PIP and for the entitlements linked to it, including carer’s allowance, as referenced in the hon. Member’s urgent question, and the universal credit carer element, which is an increasingly important part of the picture. The PIP changes will be implemented from November next year. They will apply to new claimants and to people at their award review after that date, and those with severe conditions who will never work will be protected.

I pay tribute to the millions of unpaid carers across the country. We recognise and value their vital contribution, providing care and continuity of support, including to many people with disabilities. The 2021 census indicated that approximately 5 million people in England and Wales are doing some unpaid care. As the hon. Member knows, we are delivering the biggest ever cash increase in the earnings threshold for carer’s allowance, increasing it by £45 a week to £196, benefiting more than 60,000 carers by 2029-30. Our reforms will build a system that is fairer and more sustainable so that it will always be there for those with the greatest needs to live with the dignity and support that they are entitled to.

Yesterday saw the biggest cuts to carer’s allowance for decades. Although we need to manage down appropriately the benefits budget, that needs to be done in a way that is caring, compassionate and far from rushed, which is what we saw yesterday. We are looking at approximately 150,000 carers losing allowances under these proposals. Half a billion pounds will be taken away from those who care. The Joseph Rowntree Foundation suggests that some couples will lose £12,000 a year, when PIP cuts and carer’s allowance cuts are taken into account. While I welcome the apology that the Chief Secretary to the Treasury gave yesterday in relation to his references to pocket money, will the Minister agree that it is inappropriate to compare cuts to PIP with cuts to pocket money?

I very much agree that this all needs to be done in a managed and compassionate way, which is exactly what we are doing, so I do not agree that it is being rushed. As I have said, the changes will not happen for more than 18 months—they will not take effect until November 2026. They will not affect current recipients of personal independence payment until their first award review after November 2026, and review periods are typically three years, so this is definitely not being rushed. It will happen in a properly planned, staged and careful way.

The hon. Gentleman referred to couples losing £12,000. I think he must be referring to instances of people who receive personal independence payment and also receive carer’s allowance for caring for their spouse—he is right that there are some instances of that. There are couples for whom that happens both ways. The transitional arrangements we are consulting on, which are referred to in the Green Paper, need to take account of that incidence, but it is absolutely the right thing to do, to ensure that personal independence payment continues in the long term as part of a sustainable benefit system.

We do have to make some reductions, as I think the hon. Gentleman acknowledged. If he has another idea on how that can be done, I am interested to know what it is. By concentrating on those whose impairments are the most severe, which the proposed changes will do, we will be able to ensure that the benefit is there for the long term and that it is sustainable.

Does my right hon. Friend agree that in order to safeguard the future of the welfare system, we must ensure that it is sustainable?

My hon. Friend is absolutely right; we have to do that. Five years ago, we were spending £12 billion on personal independence payment, and this year, in current prices, we will spend £22 billion. The Government have to address that, precisely as he says, in order to ensure that this crucial safety net is there for the long term. We will not be means-testing it, freezing it or converting it into vouchers, as the Conservative party suggested; we want it to be a cash benefit that can meet the needs of those who depend on it.

I call the shadow Minister.

I congratulate the hon. Member for Torbay (Steve Darling) on bringing this important matter before the House. In government, my party supported carers: we increased carer’s allowance by £1,500 and, with the support of the Liberal Democrats, introduced carer’s leave. We are united again today in dismay at what this Government are doing.

The Government had 14 years to prepare their welfare reforms. We had nothing for eight months, and then everything in a rush, because the Chancellor crashed the economy. With growth this year cut in half, inflation rising further, unemployment up, productivity down, debt interest soaring, a record tax burden and 200,000 people being pushed into absolute poverty by the measures taken by this Government, they have had an emergency Budget containing cuts to benefits for disabled people. Perhaps if they were not in such a rush, they would have realised that these crude reforms also impact carers. Some 150,000 people who gave up income to look after a loved one, and who rely on carer’s allowance to make ends meet, are now going to lose it.

The Government are balancing the books on the backs of the people least able to take the weight. That is Labour: making other people pay for the fiasco of their Budget. First they came for the farmers, then for the pensioners, and now it is the carers—the most important people in our society, doing the most important job a human being can do, not for the money but for the love. The least the Government can do is to give them our support. That is what we did in government, so why will they not?

Can the Minister confirm whether carer’s allowance was a deliberate target of the Government’s reforms, or did they not realise the impact of what they were doing to PIP because of the rush they were in? Do they think that taking £500 million from carers while giving above-inflation pay awards to the trade unions is the right priority, and does the Minister share the Chief Secretary to the Treasury’s view that cutting support for carers and disabled people is like taking pocket money from children? Is that what he believes carer’s allowance is—pocket money?

I suppose the hon. Gentleman has no choice but to attempt to defend his party’s record in government. As I have referred to already, the Conservative party’s plan was to convert PIP into vouchers—that really frightened people who were dependent on that system—and they also wanted to make some big cuts to the work capability assessment, which were ruled out by the courts as unlawful. We announced in the Green Paper that we are going to abandon those cuts. For example, the Conservatives were proposing to remove the mobility descriptor from the work capability assessment on the grounds that people can now work from home, but it is clearly ludicrous to claim that a mobility impairment does not affect a person’s ability to work. I remind the hon. Gentleman that in responding to the Green Paper on behalf of the Opposition, his hon. Friend the Member for Faversham and Mid Kent (Helen Whately) demanded further cuts, so the outrage he has expressed is a bit inappropriate.

We have a proper plan, set out in the Green Paper. It has been well thought through—as the hon. Gentleman will find if he reads it properly—including a reference to unpaid carers on its very last page. We are well aware of the impact it will have, which is why we are consulting on the transitional arrangements.

I thank my right hon. Friend for coming before the House and calmly laying out some of the facts on this matter, as I would expect from him, given his experience. However, there has been a lot of fear out there, and confusion among MPs, advisers and—most worryingly—people who are in receipt of PIP and other benefits and are affected by these changes. Does my right hon. Friend agree that clear communications at all times about this matter are very important, and that every Minister should be very careful about clumsy and inappropriate language, because of the impact it has on the people who are most affected?

My hon. Friend is absolutely right about the sensitivity of this issue. I particularly regret the anxiety that has been caused by press speculation over the past several weeks—that has certainly been regrettable. From my postbag, the thing that particularly frightened people was the point I have already referred to, which was the previous Government’s proposal to switch PIP from a cash benefit to vouchers. That caused a great deal of concern, but my hon. Friend is right: we now need to be absolutely clear in our communication about these matters. I think the Green Paper is clear. The accessible versions of the Green Paper will all be published by the beginning of next month, and we will then have a 12-week consultation period. As a result of those versions, including the easy-read version, being available, I hope that everybody will be able to see clearly what is proposed and will be able to respond to the consultation with their views.

The analogy of the Chief Secretary to the Treasury has proved to be controversial, but the Minister agrees with the point he was making, does he not?

I did not hear what my right hon. Friend said. What I can say is that a very large number of people are dependent on the personal independence payment. We want it to be a sustainable benefit that will be there for the long term. Because of the changes we are making, which will reduce the future increase in spending on personal independence payment, we can be confident and recipients can be confident that that will be the case.

I am potentially one of the few Members of this House who has been a recipient of the higher rates of living allowance. I was a recipient of the higher rate of mobility allowance, and I relied on a Motability car for many years, too. On the flipside, I remember, after my second hip replacement in my early 30s, having to try to navigate the Access to Work scheme, which was pretty impossible. In fact, it locks people out of work, rather than letting them in.

There are many good things in the Green Paper that has been brought forward that address some of those points. When I think back to what I had to go through from age 13 to 17, I am also pleased that those benefits will be protected for people in that situation. PIP is also what we call a passporting benefit. Such things as access to the blue badge scheme and carer’s allowance are often dependent on PIP, so one potential implication is that people could be locked out. Will the Minister consider carrying these things forward and meet me to discuss access to the blue badge scheme and carer’s allowance for people who might lose PIP, but would still be entitled to those benefits?

I very much welcome my hon. Friend’s testimony to the value of the support that the system provides and the importance of maintaining that into the future. He is right about passported benefits. The availability of blue badges is not affected by anything in the Green Paper, because the mobility component of personal independence payment is not changed by any of the proposals we have made. Access to carer’s allowance, as we have said, certainly will be, and I would welcome a discussion with him about that.

I declare an interest as an honorary vice-president of Carers UK, and I sit on the board of the Fife Carers Centre. Last September, I had the Adjournment debate on support for unpaid carers. In that, the Minister for Care, the hon. Member for Aberafan Maesteg (Stephen Kinnock), promised that we would

“forge ahead together with the promise of that future in which unpaid carers are visible, valued and supported.”—[Official Report, 3 September 2024; Vol. 753, c. 288.]

That is not how unpaid carers are feeling today. The Minister referred to how the earnings limit for carer’s allowance has increased, but there is still a cliff edge. Are the Government planning to bring forward plans to link the earnings limit to the 16 hours of employment at the national minimum wage? We know that those are some of the things that caused the overpayments for carer’s allowance in the first place.

Yes, the earnings threshold will in future be set at 16 times the hourly rate of the national living wage, and that will continue indefinitely. In addition, the Chancellor announced in the Budget last year that we will look at the idea of an income taper in carer’s allowance to replace the cliff edge, which, as the hon. Member rightly says, is a feature of it at the moment. We are looking at that assessment.

I thank my right hon. Friend for how he is responding to this urgent question. The Conservatives, after 14 years in government, broke our social security system and created a hostile environment for disabled people, and therefore it is for us—Labour in government—to fix our social security system. I would like to press my right hon. Friend on this: 30% of disabled people already live in poverty, and the proposed changes to personal independence payment could see more being pushed further into poverty and many being pushed out of work. Indeed, the Government’s impact assessment highlighted that 150,000 people could lose carer’s allowance or the carer’s element. May I press him again to think about how we ensure that we support ill and disabled people as we fix the mess that the Tories have created?

My hon. Friend is absolutely right to say that we were left with a broken system. May I pay tribute to her for her work on the all-party parliamentary group on eye health and visual impairment, which focuses on supporting people into employment? That is the crucial element of this package. We will invest substantial sums, rising to £1 billion a year by the end of the Parliament, in supporting people who are out of work on health and disability grounds into work, and I very much look forward to working with her in that endeavour. When somebody who is out of work moves into a job, the likelihood of their being below the poverty line is halved, so there will be a very positive poverty impact from that commitment.

I have already been contacted by carers in my constituency who are scared about what will happen to them and the people they care for. I welcome the Minister’s explanations thus far, but there will clearly be a problem with encouraging people who care for others to go out to work, who will say, “Who’s going to care for the person I care for now?” What message does the Minister have for those who look after very vulnerable people and cannot leave them alone, and who cannot work?

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for making that point. Given his description of the people being cared for, they will continue to receive personal independence payments. Once the changes have taken effect from November next year, those who do not score at least four points on any of the 10 daily living activities that the benefit conditions set out will not be eligible for personal independence payments. I would need to look at the particular cases that the hon. Gentleman has in mind, but I imagine that people who cannot be left alone at home will continue to score at least four points. Therefore, the carer’s allowance for their carers will continue as at present.

I have the highest respect for my right hon. Friend, but I am afraid he is not right on this policy. As a former physiotherapist, I know that many people will not be able to claim carer’s allowance. Now that we have had the impact assessment, we have seen that nearly 400,000 disabled people will be pushed further into poverty, including 50,000 children, and that 150,000 carers will lose the lifeline of carer’s allowance. We do not have a social care system to replace it; besides, social care is more expensive. Today, I want to speak truth to power. Sometimes Governments get things wrong, and I ask the Government to seriously reflect on these policies. The first half of Pathways to Work is good, but the second half will let a lot of people down. Please reflect, and please withdraw this policy.

I am grateful to my hon. Friend, but we will not withdraw the policy. We will certainly reflect on it, and we will consult properly on the content of the Green Paper. The figures published by the Office for Budget Responsibility yesterday showed that the benefit changes, on their own, will take 250,000 people, including 200,000 adults, below the poverty line, but that is before any consideration of the impact of the big commitment that we are making to employment support —up to £1 billion a year by the end of the Parliament. That will clearly have a very positive effect in reducing poverty. The Office for Budget Responsibility will look at all of this over the summer and then update its figures in the autumn. We will see what it concludes, but I think the balance of this package will be very positive for reducing poverty in the UK.

To help families, the last Government put in place the household support fund, which this Government have continued. However, it is due to run out in 2026, when the Minister’s changes are coming in. What hope is there for households who need emergency support if the household support fund will be dropped when his changes come in?

We have retained the household support fund, as the hon. Member rightly points out, and the future arrangements will be set out in due course. However, I can reassure him of the absolute commitment of this Government to supporting families who need our support. The child poverty taskforce is working on this issue at the moment, and will bring forward a strategy to address the problem of child poverty. The figures published this morning on households below average income show just what a huge challenge there is, given the very high level of child poverty left by the previous Government. We will be addressing that.

I thank the Minister for paying tribute to carers for the economic and social contribution they make, and for the biggest ever increase in the employment earnings threshold for carers. There is a lot of worry about the changes, so could the Minister confirm that nobody on PIP will be impacted by them until November 2026 at the earliest? In the meantime, I will be working with disabled groups in my constituency to understand the impact on individuals, and the impact of the investment on supporting disabled people into work. The Minister spoke about transitional arrangements. How can I ensure that the views of disabled people in Newcastle upon Tyne Central and West feed into decisions about the implementation of these changes?

My hon. Friend is absolutely right to underline again the hugely important contribution, not least economic contribution, made by carers. The consultation is under way, and it will run for a full 12 weeks from the time when all the accessible versions of the Green Papers are published, which will be in early April. I would be very grateful if she encouraged the organisations that she is working with to respond to that consultation, and I would also be very interested to hear and see her response to it. We will take those contributions extremely seriously as we finalise the details of these proposals.

Before I put my question to the Minister, I am sure that the House will want to join me in offering condolences to Keith Brown, our deputy party leader, on the death of his wife Christina McKelvie, who was a very distinguished and long-serving Member of the Scottish Parliament and a Minister.

The impact assessment snuck out yesterday under cover of the spring statement confirmed what the SNP has been warning about for some time. Labour’s austerity cuts will have a devastating effect, with the poorest and most vulnerable in society forced to foot the bill for the Chancellor’s incompetence. Some 150,000 people will be affected by the changes to carer’s allowance, but also—at an absolute minimum—250,000 people, including 50,000 children, will be forced into poverty. These are very modest assessments; I heard the hon. Member for York Central (Rachael Maskell) give a figure of 400,000 people. Labour promised that it would improve living standards, but with the full extent of the damage now spelled out, does Labour’s promise not lie in tatters? What will it take for the Government to change course before irreversible harm is done?

I echo the hon. Gentleman’s condolences. The figures were certainly not snuck out yesterday; I do not think anyone can accuse the Office for Budget Responsibility of sneaking them out. They were published on the day of the spring statement, as they always are and always have to be. Let me make it clear that spending on the personal independence payment will continue to increase above inflation. It will not increase as fast as it would have done if we had done nothing, but the advantage is that the funding for that benefit will be sustainable, and that is vital because so many people depend on it. It is not going to be means-tested and it is not going to be frozen. It will be there for the long term.

There is real fear among many of my Calder Valley constituents with disabilities and with caring responsibilities about the proposed changes to PIP, and that fear has been exacerbated by some of the reporting. Can the Minister please give me a categorical assurance that the consultation on these measures is genuine, and that the Government will ensure that the responses of disabled people and of disability rights campaigns such as Scope will be given the weight they deserve?

My hon. Friend is absolutely right to raise those points. I can give him the assurance that he seeks. Indeed, I spoke to Scope yesterday, and to other disability charities. Yes, this will be a proper consultation, and we will listen very carefully to what people say to us in response.

Terminal illness devastates people’s finances. More than 100 terminally ill people every month are refused PIP, and every day 300 people die in poverty, having fallen through the cracks of our benefits system. Many family carers in the midst of bereavement are then left with nothing. The Government’s plans in the Green Paper say nothing about how the terminally ill or their carers will be affected by these cuts. Can the Minister guarantee today that they will not be plunged into deeper poverty?

I am grateful to the hon. Member for raising that point, but the Green Paper is very clear about the protections provided for people who are terminally ill. There are special rules in place, and they will absolutely be maintained. She can be very much reassured about what the Green Paper says about that group. If there is a point that I have missed that she has spotted, I would be grateful to hear about it, but we have very robust protections for those people for exactly the reasons she sets out.

I grew up caring for two disabled parents. As I said in my maiden speech, I would not be here if it was not for the sacrifices they made when they had so little in the first place. I have seen both my mother and my father forced out of work by their poor health. I have seen their mental health suffer, because they could not get a foot in the door of the NHS. I have seen the consequences in our family home; they suffered significant bouts of depression. I know the dignity and importance of work to people who want to and can work. When my parents’ health got worse, they could not work, so I know the importance of protections for people like them. I am pleased that the Government are emphasising both parts of the issue. Will the Minister please assure my constituents, who are concerned because of the leak, into which an official inquiry is under way, that the Government are truly listening to our constituents? Will he give the assurance that, through the pathways to work consultation, the Government want to hear from disability groups in my constituency, including the Cambian Wing college, whose representatives I met on Monday, and other organisations? Will he also reassure the public that the Government are committed to closing the disability employability gap? We need employers to support people into work, too.

I understand that this is a very important urgent question—that is why it was granted—but I need to try to get everybody in; that is what I am bothered about. If we can speed up questions and answers, that would help us all.

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for bringing his experience to this debate. I can absolutely give him the reassurance he seeks.

Earlier in the week, I wrote to the Secretary of State, asking her to confirm that the plans would not go ahead if the proposals were assessed as being harmful to disabled people. The equality analysis says that the families who will lose out are estimated to represent 20% of all families who report having someone with a disability in the household. Given that PIP is not related to work, and that the money cannot be made up through work changes, does the Minister agree that proceeding is not acceptable when there is this level of harm?

The assessment published yesterday is that 90% of those receiving the daily living PIP component will continue to receive that benefit after the changes take effect, so I think the concern that the hon. Lady raises is not entirely appropriate.

Like thousands of others, I carried out my caring responsibilities this morning before I came to this place. I have first-hand experience of worrying about paying the bills every month due to caring responsibilities—something I no longer have to worry about. Will the Minister consider whether we need a plan across Government Departments to identify the support available to ensure that carers can work, and that they and their loved ones do not fall into poverty as a result of the announcements made?

I am working with the Minister for Care in the Department of Health and Social Care on this. I agree with my hon. Friend that we need to work across Government on these issues. We need to be concerned about the effect on young carers in the education system, so the Department for Education needs to be involved as well. His point about cross-Government working is absolutely right.

Almost a third of all unpaid carers in Wales live in poverty. That is over 100,000 people caring for the sick, the elderly and the disabled. The Labour First Minister in Wales, Eluned Morgan, has already asked for a Wales-specific impact assessment of welfare cuts. She has not even had the courtesy of a reply. Can the Minister tell me how many more unpaid carers in Wales will be pushed into hardship due to losing their entitlement to carer’s allowance?

As the hon. Lady will have gathered, the impact assessment was published yesterday. The figures are there for everybody to see, and the impacts are across the UK; that is correct. I want the support that we provide to be sustainable in the long term for those who depend on it. That will be the impact of our changes to the personal independence payment. I also want better support for carers who want to combine working with caring. That is not always easy for people to do. We made a commitment to providing up to £1 billion in better employment support by the end of this Parliament. If we can use that to support carers as well as people who are sick and disabled, we could see a significant reduction in the number of people living in poverty.

Like many Members, I have had emails from constituents who are worried about these changes. Can the Minister confirm that the most disabled people, who will never work, will be protected; that he is consulting on a new higher rate of universal credit for those who are most severely disabled; and that the Chancellor’s £1 billion investment in employment support will help those disabled people who could work to find good-quality jobs, which are the best route out of poverty?

I thank my hon. Friend for her work on disability employment, which has been an important contribution. I can give the reassurances she seeks.

As someone who lives with ulcerative colitis, I am all too acquainted with the fact that health conditions can vary wildly. We know that people with conditions such as Crohn’s and colitis and their carers already have issues accessing PIP and carer’s allowance. What consideration has the Minister given to conditions such as those in the context of these cuts?

It is very important that the system properly handles fluctuating conditions. One of the benefits of the proposal in the Green Paper to record by default PIP assessments is that we will be able to provide better assurance that the assessments get these judgments right, particularly in the case of fluctuating conditions.

I know from speaking to charities, local groups and people from brilliant projects such as JobSmart in my constituency about the increasing complexity of the relationship between different forms of benefit, including carer’s allowance, and the rules around working. That makes it increasingly difficult for people to use the options they have. Can my right hon. Friend assure the House that the record amount of employment support will address the issue of the flexibility that we need to support sick and disabled people into some form of work, and will not just be for mentoring for those in other categories?

My hon. Friend is absolutely right, and I join him in paying tribute to organisations such as JobSmart in his constituency. When the previous Labour Government introduced the new deal for disabled people in 1998—I was the Minister then, as I am now—the disability employment gap started to fall, and it fell steadily all the way until 2010, when it stopped falling. I want to get us back to that positive downward trajectory.

The Minister is an honourable man. I have known him a long time, and I know that he tries to be compassionate and helpful, but I have deep concerns about this. It would appear that the books are to be balanced on the backs of the vulnerable. I have a genuine concern that the outworking of the spring statement may push some people with severe mental health problems over the edge. How will the Government put in place greater support for those who have to battle their recognised illnesses and live—not just survive—in this pressure-filled world? That will be even harder after these changes are implemented.

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his kind words at the start of his question. Our proposals fully protect the personal independence payments of those with the most severe impairments. I think those are the people that he is concerned about, and they are fully protected under these plans.

Obviously, the work of carers is important, as we have been hearing. Can the Minister help me with one constituent’s case? He is a carer, but is now suffering from long covid and would be due PIP. What will happen to him under the points system?

An assessment will be carried out by a properly trained health professional. If the person to whom my hon. Friend refers scores more than four points on any one of the 10 daily living activities, they will be eligible for personal independence payment, as at present.

It is shocking that one in eight of our young people is not in education, employment or training. I want this to be a country in which all working-age people, including young people, feel that sense of opportunity again. I know how important work is in lifting people out of poverty. I also know that it is in our DNA as a Labour party to be there for people who are disabled, vulnerable or not able to work. Will the Minister share how that £1 billion-a-year support package will help those who can work get into work? And does he agree that we will always have the backs of those who cannot work, and those who care for them?

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. We will be working with disabled people over the next few months on the plans for how that commitment should be taken forward. We said in the “Get Britain Working” White Paper, before Christmas, that we will be setting up a disability employment panel specifically to work on those plans. I will be very keen to work with her on those details as we draw them up.

Order. Members will need to move a little faster, as will the Minister.

Many of my constituents will welcome the reforms to get more people off benefits and into work. Many recognise the urgent need to make our welfare system more sustainable, but many also deeply worry about not just the impact on carers, but the impact assessment that suggests that 50,000 more children will be pushed into poverty by 2029. Can the Minister assure me not just about the transitional arrangements to help both parents and children, but that this summer’s child poverty taskforce will take urgent steps to correct the impact assessment and that parents and children will be scored urgently in any future impact assessment that the Government come up with?

My hon. Friend is right to highlight the challenge of high levels of child poverty. I certainly can give him the reassurance that he seeks. I think the employment impact will be very positive on future child poverty, but the work of the child poverty taskforce will be as well. And, yes, that will be fully scored once the policy has been announced.

I am grateful to the Government for focusing on getting people back into work because it gives them pride, power and ownership, but, as ever, it is not what you do, but how you do it. I say to the Minister that, rather than allay my concerns, the impact assessment has actually given me several more. I ask him to find time to meet me so that we can go through two things: the concerns that my constituents in Newcastle-under-Lyme have, and those that I have, too.

I will gladly meet my hon. Friend and look forward to the meeting.

I welcome my right hon. Friend’s commitment to improving the experience of people going through the assessment process, as I am regularly shocked by some of the experiences of my constituents. Can he say a little more about how he will improve claimant experience, particularly for the most vulnerable claimants?

The key proposal in the Green Paper is the default recording of assessments, so that when something goes wrong, we can check back and see what happened. I have had the experience, as my hon. Friend probably has, of talking to people who have been through the assessment and then seen it and said, “Well, that wasn’t me. It is unrecognisable.” That should not be happening, and we want to change that.

I thank the Minister for his statement. I declare an interest as the chair of the all-party parliamentary group for young carers and young adult carers. Does the Minister agree that the role of young carers is critical not only to those who are cared for, but to the economy? Although young carers under 16 do not receive carer’s allowance, will he consider the impact of any plans on young carers and how we might better support them?

Order. Before the Minister responds, I remind the hon. Member that this is an urgent question, not a statement.

My hon. Friend is right to highlight the needs of young carers. I have spoken to young people who started caring in their primary school years. It takes a while for them to be recognised as carers. We need to speed things up.

I have spoken to Jobcentre Plus in Rugby about its excellent work to support people into work, including young people with special educational needs whom I have met. Will my right hon. Friend confirm that the package of employment support announced last week—something that charities in my constituency have long been calling for—is one of the biggest ever amounts of money to give disabled people and those with long-term conditions the help they need to find work?

Absolutely, it is. The people that my hon. Friend described will be the beneficiaries of the big commitment that we have made.

I thank the Minister for the constructive and thoughtful way in which he has engaged with Members over the past week. I have written to him in the past couple of days on two matters, and I would like to take the opportunity to put them to him. First, he is leading a review of the PIP assessment—will its terms of reference be made public? Secondly, there is a case for looking again at the PIP criteria, as set out in secondary legislation, which were opposed by Labour 12 years ago. Will he continue to engage in the manner that he has been doing with Members now that we are in the consultation period, including on that point?

I will be very glad to. My hon. Friend is right that the indicators used in the current personal independence payment assessment were drawn up in 2013. It is high time that we had another look at them, and I will be happy to put the terms of reference for that work into the public domain. I look forward to the opportunity to discuss it with him.