John Pring at the Disability News Service reports that “work and pensions secretary Damian Green and minister for disabled people Penny Mordaunt (pictured) both misled the House of Commons about how personal independence payment (PIP) was affecting disabled people.”
Mordaunt told MPs that under PIP – compared with Disability Living Allowance (DLA), which it is replacing for working-age claimants – “more people are entitled to use the Motability scheme”.
However John Pring points out “that Motability’s own figures show that of their customers who have been reassessed for PIP so far, 44 per cent have lost their entitlement to the scheme and have had to hand their vehicles back.”
Responding to another question on PIP, Green told MPs on Monday that “many more people are eligible to receive PIP than were eligible to receive disability living allowance”. However, the Department for Work and Pensions’ (DWP) own figures from June showed that only about seven in 10 disabled people who were previously claiming DLA were being found eligible for PIP.
Tory MP Peter Bone said he did “not know whether it is just in my area, but at every weekly surgery I will have one person who has been refused PIP who is clearly entitled to it. I had a lady this week with multiple sclerosis; she is clearly entitled to it and will get it when she goes to the independent tribunal, but why do such people have to wait until then?”
What do you think of the switch from DLA to PIP? Do you think MPs should be held accountable for their actions when they have been found to be lying? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below, on our Facebook page, or on Twitter.
