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Parkinson's UK Scotland submission of 10 December 2021

PE1854/J - Review the adult disability payment eligibility criteria for people with mobility needs

Parkinson’s UK Scotland welcomes the opportunity to contribute to the Committee’s continuing deliberations on this petition. The 20m rule is an extremely important issue for people with Parkinson’s and their partners, families and friends.

Between them, our community-based advisers in Scotland and expert benefits and employment advisers support hundreds of people with Parkinson’s, unpaid carers and family members in Scotland to secure the social security benefits to which they are entitled every year. Our work is based on the unique situations of each individual and household we work with.

Overall, Parkinson’s UK Scotland does not believe that the changes to the eligibility criteria for new disability benefits in Scotland proposed in PE01854 would risk other reserved/passported benefits being withdrawn.

Our answer is based on the proposed change to the 20m rule, which is used to assess whether a person qualifies for a PIP mobility award at the enhanced rate.

The enhanced rate award makes a difference of £3,252 a year to household income. It is the only way to access the Motability scheme. And it provides a passport to the Scottish Government’s Blue Badge parking scheme, to a disabled person’s bus pass and to local transport schemes.

According to Citizens Advice Scotland, some low income recipients of PIP can access disability premiums to top up certain legacy benefits, which are being replaced with Universal Credit.

Universal Credit claimants cannot claim disability premiums. There are some transitional protections for those who receive disability premiums when they transfer to Universal Credit, but they diminish over time.

In most cases, PIP is only a passporting benefit if the person receives an award under the daily living component of PIP. In a small number of cases, people may qualify for a basic disability premium solely on the basis of a PIP mobility award. Very few people who receive a mobility award do so without also receiving an award in the daily living component - the latest DWP statistics show only 4% of PIP claimants are in this category.

Changes to PIP income will not reduce the amount of money that a claimant receives from means-tested benefits because PIP income is exempt.

We conclude that removing the 20m rule in ADP will not have an impact on passporting to reserved benefits.

Parkinson’s UK Scotland argued that the Scottish Government needed legislative powers over social security when certain benefits were devolved. We believed that this would enable Scottish Government to address major problems in the terms of disability benefits. The UK Government will publish a white paper in 2022. We expect this to outline cost-saving reforms to social security for disabled people. Will Scottish Government continue to tie its devolved benefits to reserved ones as the systems continue to overlap?

Parkinson’s UK Scotland is disappointed that Scottish Government believes that scrapping the 20m rule will create a “two tier system” between new ADP claimants and existing claimants transferring from PIP. Scottish Government’s changes to the assessment process should lead to fairer assessments, and more appropriate decisions being made about the support people receive. This already creates a two-tier system with some of those transferred from PIP to ADP in a worse position than they would have been as new claimants.

The Minister for Social Security also argues that there are risks if eligibility criteria change and people who have previously lost out seek reassessment under the new criteria, putting the transition programme at risk. While this will be an important process for the Social Security Agency and Scottish Government to manage properly, we believe that this aspect could be achieved through a managed process of reapplication for transferring claimants who wish to be reassessed against fairer criteria.

The Parkinson’s community wants to know how long people will have to wait for a fairer way of assessing mobility to be introduced, and when the administrative burden of rectifying the injustice of the 20m rule will be deemed manageable. By the time that the planned Independent Inquiry reports, the transition process will still be underway. The system will still be under pressure. And people with conditions like Parkinson’s will still be missing out on the mobility support that they need.