Written question asked by Baroness Coffey (Conservative) on Wednesday, 22 July 2026, in the House of Lords. It was due for an answer on Wednesday, 5 August 2026. It was answered by Baroness Sherlock (Labour) on Friday, 31 July 2026 on behalf of the Department for Work and Pensions.

Personal Independence Payment

Question: To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the cost of changing the minimum Personal Independence Payment award to four years.

Answer: In the Autumn Statement 2025 the then Chancellor announced three measures which will make operational improvements to health assessments to ensure people receive the right health or disability benefit, deal with the reassessment backlog for the Work Capability Assessment (WCA) and ensure the Personal Independence Payment (PIP) system is sustainable: increasing face to face assessments across health and disability benefits, increasing WCA reassessment capacity and changing the frequency of PIP award reviews (AR). Together, this package of measures were scored by the OBR at the last Budget as set to deliver around £2 billion in savings over the scorecard.

Secondary information